The cheerful bliss started by the sundae lasted even after it was gone. “I don’t dance,” Hailey muttered softly in Parvati’s ear, as they stepped up to the dance floor.
Parvati glanced sideways at Hailey, and spied the mischievous gleam in her eyes. “Oh?” she asked playfully.
Hailey grinned. “So I’ve been studying a few different kinds of dance,” she muttered, then suddenly started moving. Parvati moved with her, giggling at just how well Hailey was matching the tempo of the music to her dynamic, very fast-moving dance, with twirls and everything. Parvati was fairly certain she wouldn’t have been surprised if someone had told her that Hailey was the best dance partner in the entire school.
“Nice bra, Potter.”
All her elation left her in an instant when she heard Mad-Eye Moody’s muttered complement at a moment in Hailey’s dance that had their noses inches from each other. A cold shiver ran down her spine- and from Hailey’s sudden stillness, and the sudden strength in her grip, Hailey had felt it too.
Hailey slowly turned her head to look at Moody.
“Detention, Professor,” she told him in a low, dangerous tone that made Moody flinch away from her. “You keep that eye where it belongs.”
There was silence, between the two of them at least, for several seconds while Moody wandered off, since Professor Sinistra- the Astronomy Professor, if Parvati remembered right- had abandoned him straight away with a horrified look on her face.
The worst part was that Moody was right- Hailey was wearing a very nice bra. As a matter of fact, while they had been changing in the dormitory, Parvati had noticed it, and asked. Apparently, Rarity had made it for her, as a proof of concept for a new line of garments… even knowing that none of them would ever be seen.
At least, theoretically.
Finally, Hailey sighed. “Well, now he’s gone and killed the mood,” she grumbled. “Anyways…” She paused, briefly. “Oh my. It doesn’t look like Padma is having much fun.”
Parvati glanced over. “At least she doesn’t have that creep looking at her bra,” Parvati hissed, glaring at Moody’s back.
“She’s within that eye’s range,” Hailey answered darkly. “Though I did just curse that magic eye blind for the next few hours.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “So he can’t…”
“Yeah,” Hailey nodded. “He can’t.”
She scowled as they walked off the dance floor towards where Padma was sitting, arms folded and grumpy, next to Ron. “Wouldn’t that damage a magical eye?”
Hailey grinned. “I didn’t use true blindness, of course. I only forced it to gaze at the ceiling and spin.”
She let out a snort of harsh laughter, and glanced up at where Moody was throwing himself down at an empty table in the corner, looking disgruntled and very grumpy. “Good riddance,” she muttered.
Hailey then stepped up behind a chair on the table, and looked at Ron. “Ron, what are you doing?”
Parvati looked. Ron also had his arms folded, and a grumpy expression on his face, while he glared across the room, at… That was Hermione, dancing with Krum.
Ron didn’t answer.
So Hailey sighed, and looked up at Padma. “Has he asked you to dance?” she asked.
“He’s been ignoring me ever since we entered the Great Hall,” Padma snapped.
Hailey scowled. “Well that’s not acceptable.” She walked around, and sat on the table right in front of Ron, blocking his view of the dance floor with her gown. “Ron?” she asked.
Ron looked up at her. “What?” he snapped.
“You do know that not a single one of us went with another, right? The tournament is about meeting new people, not hiding in a corner with someone you know.”
“It’s about winning,” Ron declared, folding his arms.
Hailey rolled her eyes. “Alright then.” She glanced at Padma, then looked back at Ron. “Are you going to ask Padma to dance?” she asked.
“No,” he barked.
Padma flinched, looking hurt, and made to get up- but Hailey held out a finger to stop her. “Alright then, Ron.” She looked up, then back down at him. “The Weird Sisters will be starting another song in about thirty seconds,” she informed him. “Me and Parvati will dance through it, and if we get back at the end to find that you still haven’t asked her to dance, you’re going to be Ronelda for the rest of the evening.”
“R-!” Ron gasped. “You wouldn’t!”
“I would,” Hailey grinned, the mischievous glint returning to her eyes. “And for every successive song for which you don’t ask her to dance after that, your dress will get fancier.”
“N-No,” he protested.
“Then ask her to dance,” Hailey ordered, before hopping off the table. “We’ll be back.”
As Hailey took Parvati’s hand and led her back to the dance floor with a fire in her eyes, Parvati noticed that Padma had resumed her seat, and was now watching Ron with a curiously expectant gaze.
Parvati was laughing again when the song ended- and very tired out from the dancing. She hadn’t realized she was capable of backflipping, let alone in her floor-length gown, but she’d done it- and as part of Hailey’s dance, no less!
“Where-!” she gasped, as they left the floor and headed for the table that Ron and Padma were sitting at. “Where did you learn that?”
Hailey, completely unwinded despite the exertion- probably a side effect of the magic whatsits- chuckled. “I invented it. The way Rarity makes these dresses, it’s basically impossible to be accidentally immodest, even while doing acrobatics, so I had some fun.”
She laughed. “Yeah, that was fun.” Then, as she was reaching the table first, she looked up at Padma. “Has he asked you to dance?” she asked.
Padma, her eyes agleam with curiosity, shook her head. “Nope.”
Hailey helped Parvati to a chair- she was really tired out- and sat down in the one next to it. “Ron, are you going to ask her to dance?”
Ron gave an involuntary jerk and turned to look at her, from where he had been glaring at Hermione again. “N- er…”
Hailey sighed. “That song is over,” she told him. “You know what that means?”
He let out a squeak as he flinched away from her.
She folded her arms. “I’m giving you one last chance,” she told him sternly. “Are you going to ask her now, or not?”
“No,” Ron decided.
“Alright,” Hailey sighed, unfolding her arms to draw her wand. “You asked for it.”
“Wait,” Ron gasped, eyes going wide. “No, don’t-!”
Bang.
With a bright flash of crimson light, Ron changed. He became very definitely a girl- and a rather curvy one at that. He also got a bit shorter, and his shoulders jumped closer together like a rubber band. His short brown hair exploded down all the way to his waist.
“Gah!” Ron cried, in a much higher, more feminine voice. “H-Hailey!”
“I told you, Ronelda,” Hailey grinned.
Flash “Little to the left please,” Flash “Nice grumpy face,” Flash “Smile for me,” Flash “Now stand up straight,” Flash “Enough! I go!”
Parvati had a split second to recognize that it was a white-haired someone with a big black camera and an entire crew with lights and reflectors before they were gone in a trail of dust, leaving Ronelda standing next to her seat, looking flustered.
Hailey put one hand to her mouth. “Thanks!” she called, while Parvati clutched at her belly, laughing too hard to make any more than a faint squeaking.
“Wh-Who was that?” Ronelda asked, sounding shaken and at least mildly horrified as she sat back down amidst Padma’s much louder laughter.
Hailey grinned. “That was Photo Finish,” she answered. “Finest photographer in all of Equestria.”
“Wh-WHAT?” Ronelda shrieked, very nearly tipping her chair over backwards.
Hailey grinned. “What? Your mom told me to make sure I got a picture, didn’t she?”
She just stared at Hailey.
Hailey leaned back in her seat, twirling her wand between her fingers. “You’ve got about two minutes before the next song,” she mused. “And for the rest of the ball, until you ask Padma to dance, your dress will get fancier every time they start a new song.” She grinned mischievously. “And of course, if you don’t ask her for the entire ball, you’ll be Ronelda until midnight tomorrow.”
“Y-You wouldn’t,” Ronelda gasped.
“You ask a girl to the ball, you dance with her,” Hailey told her calmly, then pocketed her wand and turned to Parvati. “I think I’m going to fetch some drinks real quick- any preference?”
Bang! Flash! Flash! Flash! Flash! “Enough! I go!”
Parvati couldn’t hear any of the photographer’s other words, over Padma, Fred, George, Angelina, and Sunset’s guffaws- or, for that matter, her own. Hailey hadn’t gotten back yet.
Ronelda now had a ring of flowers in her hair that wouldn’t budge when she tugged on them, and her dress looked brand new… and had lace on the cuffs and hem.
“Th-!” Sunset gasped. “That’s the best Progressive Jinx I’ve ever seen, Hailey!”
Hailey walked up from behind Fred, chuckling. “I perform to impress,” she intoned, before giggling and offering Parvati a glass.
Fred, George, Angelina, and Sunset were already having a blast at the ball. Both of the twins had Rarity-tailored suits as well, and the four of them had been trading partners with each other almost constantly, in some kind of rapidly evolving dance that was so energetic people had been backing away in fear of injury. It looked quite amazing.
“Oh, and thanks for those dance ideas, Hailey,” Fred grinned.
Sunset laughed. “Oh yes. And the dress- I didn’t know it was possible to do a triple-backflip-double-corkscrew-handstand in one without flashing someone.”
Hailey laughed. “Thank Rarity for the dress, not me.” Then she grinned. “And yeah, it’s pretty impressive the kind of acrobatics you can play around with in her dresses without any risk of flashing, isn’t it?”
Sunset chuckled. “Yeah. I am really curious how that works- it’s not enchanted, as near as I can tell.” She looked up. “But Rarity wouldn’t have been able to make something that fits me so perfectly without your help, Hailey. Everyone knows that.”
Hailey raised her eyebrow. “Oh? Whatever do you mean?”
Sunset rolled her eyes. “You know how little I care about clothing, and how I would never have willingly gotten measured- nevermind the difficulty of doing that as a human. Yet, your Changeling friend could take care of that in a second, couldn’t she?”
Angelina giggled.
Hailey nodded. “You’re right,” she agreed. “And yes, that means Rarity knows who she is.”
“One moment,” Padma muttered to the Beauxbatons boy she was dancing with, as the song drew to a close. She pranced quickly over to Ron’s table, right up by the edge of the dance floor that they had been dancing at, and leaned on the back of an empty chair. “Hey Ronelda, are you going to ask me to dance?”
“No,” Ronelda squeaked, hands over her bright scarlet face. It had been at least an hour since the dancing started, so now there were flowers all down her hair, and she was wearing a bright pink frilly dress.
She sighed. “Are you sure?”
The bagpipe started to play, and-
Bang! Flash! Flash! Flash! Flash! “Enough! I go!”
There were even more flowers in her hair, and Ronelda was now wearing makeup.
Padma giggled and left Ronelda to her embarrassment, returning to the Beauxbatons boy, who had watched with merriment in his eyes. “Let’s keep going!”
“Enough! I go!”
Hermione sighed, sipping on her punch. She and Krum had gotten tired of dancing, and sat down at the table that Ronelda was sitting at. “You know, Ron,” she muttered. “This is the last song. If you don’t ask her now…” She trailed off. Basically everyone in the whole ball knew about Ronelda by then- and when Hermione had asked Hailey why she’d do that to him, she’d explained how Ron was actually still male where it counted- and that it wasn’t going to last as long as she’d said it would, either.
“I know,” Ronelda squeaked, flopping back down in her seat, hands covering her bright scarlet face once again. “But- But I can’t!”
“Yes, you can,” Padma cooed, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Ronelda shook her hand off. “I can’t,” she muttered.
“You can,” Hailey corrected, then sighed, and put her hand on Ron’s shoulder. “Come on, Ron. Ask her. Hey, ask anyone, and I’ll break the spell early, whatever their answer is. Please?”
The music finally drew to a close at midnight- and when it did, there was one last round of applause… then, when people started moving towards the exists, Ronelda was the first out the door, at a dead run. A few seconds later, a white-haired girl with a big black camera in her hands and a group of black-haired boys with lamps and reflectors in tow dashed out after her.
“Is… Is he going to be alright?” Parvati muttered.
“Yes,” Hailey sighed. “The dress will have returned to normal by now, triggered by his leaving the Great Hall. The rest will revert when he enters it for breakfast tomorrow.”
“That’s a lot sooner than midnight,” Padma observed.
“It is,” Hailey agreed. “I just…” She sighed. “I’m not going to torture him like that.”
Morning Sun stepped up next to Hailey, paced by her partner, Crystal. “Do we have another project?” she asked.
Hailey nodded. “Yeah. This time, fifty first dates, rather than fifty first conversations. And I’m thinking I want to help him practice asking people out too- three of the girls he asked before he found Padma were here with no partners today.”
Morning looked at her. “How’re you going to do that?”
She shrugged. “Since each ‘mission’ will last a couple of days, probably, we’ll need to get the consent of and use real girls this time, rather than hiring a changeling.”
Crystal let out a sudden snort of laughter.
Hailey chuckled. “That’s going to be fun in and of itself. As will getting good, regular evaluations on his progress, since we won’t want to involve the same girl twice.”
“I imagine the Ravenclaws would be happy to help us with that part,” Morning mused. “We can use Slytherins as boss challenges.”
Hailey let out a snort of laughter as well. “Yeah, they would tend to be a lot harder than the other three houses, wouldn’t they?”
“Anyways,” Morning muttered, glancing at Crystal before turning back to Hailey. “Hailey, I’ve been meaning to ask. How did you get Mission Impossible to turn around so completely in a single class?”
Hailey shrugged. “I took a hard line with him,” she answered calmly. “Good thing I did, because now he and Crystal have made the top ten.”
Crystal gasped, her mouth hanging open for a second before she put her hand over it, as she looked at Hailey. “W-We-!” she began.
“They made the top ten?” Morning asked, surprised. Crystal nodded faintly; Parvati got the idea that Morning had just asked her question for her.
“Yup,” Hailey answered. “Made number ten just last night- and we’ll see what happens after that.”
“You know what,” Parvati muttered, as she and Hailey were walking back up towards the Gryffindor dormitory together.
“Hmm?” Hailey asked.
“This… whatever you called it. The process that let you go to Equestria. What’s it, um, entail?”
“Three days of pain and suffering,” Hailey told her. “Or we can slow it down to a week with a very high fever, or accelerate it into a few minutes of excruciating pain.”
She winced. “What would I need to do?”
“Nothing, really,” she muttered, and sighed. “The period of pain starts when we cast the spell, then when it finishes its work…” She shrugged. “Why do you ask?”
She blushed, looking away. “I-!” she began, then took a deep breath and started over. “I want to be able to feed Padma the ice cream of the Gods as well,” she muttered.
Hailey laughed. “You are aware there’s more than just magical effects, right?”
She looked at her. “There are?”
She nodded. “Yes. It’s a magical and physical transformation- and while you’d be able to see and pass through the portal into Equestria…” She trailed off. “I can just about guarantee that your hair would be a different color- an Equestrian color. Mine wasn’t- it only got shinier- but that’s going to be extremely rare. Black is a rare color in Equestria, but brown is even rarer.”
“How much could it change?”
She shrugged. “Quite a bit. Mine wasn’t much, but Hermione used to have bushy brown hair, but now its smooth and shiny red and blue. Silver’s used to be wiry blond, but now it’s silver with blue stripes. Ginny got yellow racing stripes while her already red hair sharpened into a bright red, but Ron’s red hair turned brown. Which, as I say, is extremely rare. Angelina’s part phoenix, so her hair looks like a bonfire- and the whole part-fire thing is slowly bleeding into her skin as well, so she's eventually going to have a fiery complexion.”
“Do…” She paused. “Do any of them dislike it?”
“Nope,” Hailey answered. “We think it has something to do with exactly where the color comes from, but we’re not sure- so it’s entirely possible you could get something you wouldn’t be satisfied with, and Equestrian hair resists dyes something fierce. Then there’s the tribal magic, which actually does take a physical presence for the Aethrs.”
She scowled. “What if I got one, but wanted another?”
“So like Ron, or even myself, who were Etrahs but wanted to be Raeths? You’ll still have your British abilities, and thanks to the new magic concepts we’ve discovered, it won’t be too hard to emulate the other Tribes’ native magics with it, no matter which one you end up with- provided a fair amount of training. And who knows, you might end up doing something to earn your own ascension as well.” She shrugged.
“I don’t want to be immortal,” she muttered.
“Exactly five Equestrians have ascended throughout Equestrian history,” Hailey told her. “Celestia, Luna, Cadence, Twilight, and Pinkie. So far, exactly two British people have- me and Hermione. And every single one of them was for a reason.” She put her arm around Parvati’s shoulders. “Twilight discovered the secret of Harmony and Friendship, triggering her ascension and prompting her promotion to Princess of Friendship. Pinkie ascended from helping me figure out how to compress years of time into a few seconds for the Goddess of Reports. Hermione ascended for inventing the Papa Tango, which is the most powerful piece of magic in existence in either world, by a few orders of magnitude. I ascended for saving all the dementors, with that one absolutely ridiculous patronus on the grounds last year. Unless you do something on that same level, you won’t ascend, and so won’t need to worry about it.”
She looked up at Hailey. “What about the other three?”
“Nobody really knows why Celestia and Luna ascended, and Cadence’s ascension is shrouded in mystery- even to herself. We think it has something to do with how she saved a town with love, since she became the Princess of Love, but…” She shrugged. “Those three are also all hundreds of years old, or older.”
Parvati was silent for a couple of minutes after that, mulling everything over. She’d thought about the process- Papa Tango, was it?- during the Ball, whenever there wasn’t something else claiming her attention, and had come to the conclusion she wanted it. But if it was going to hurt that much…
Was it worth it? Some pain and suffering… in exchange for the ability to feed her future soulmate food that tasted that good, not just Padma?
Finally, she made her decision.
“Can I do it?” she muttered.
“You want to go through the Papa Tango,” Hailey confirmed.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Even knowing what’s at stake.”
She nodded again. “Yes,” she declared.