Escape From Dress Robes

It was a day that would go down in history.

For the first time since Salazar Slytherin stormed out of Hogwarts, cursing at its very walls, members of all four houses would rally together to stop an evil so great, so perverse, that nothing short of total unity could destroy it.

And it began with a simple notice tacked up in the Common Room of the four houses.

Three weary Gryffindors trudged up the stairs towards their Common Room. After hours of studying, eyes sandy from reading and fingers numb from writing, they were looking forward to nothing more than an hour of warming their toes by the fire.

Their dreams of cushy seats and toasty feet were shattered by two pairs of legs running towards them at full speed.

"RON!" wailed Ginny, plowing into him. "Oh, Ron, it's simply awful-"

"What?" queried Hermione. Her brain got to work immediately, cooking up evil and horrifying possibilities. Harry tensed. Was it a Dementor attack? Ron paled. Surely the Chudley Cannons couldn't have lost again-

"Oh," moaned Neville. "Oh, this is bad. Very, very bad."

"Right," said Harry, snapping to his senses. "Let's go see what's going on." He herded the four of them into the Common Room.

Everyone was in groups, Lavender's arm around Parvati as they whispered to one another. Colin and Dennis were sitting in a corner, looking vaguely nervous. Seamus was chatting anxiously with Lavender, and Dean merely looked ashen. He ran to Ginny's side when he saw the foursome enter.

"Have you heard?" he whispered.

"Heard what?" murmured Harry.

Ginny lifted a shaking hand towards a piece of parchment tacked onto the wall.

"There," she quietly wailed.

Hermione squared her shoulders. Resolutely, she marched over the parchment.

What she saw made her knees buckle.

"Oh no," she moaned. "Oh no, oh no, please, God, anything but this!" she cried.

Harry and Ron ran to catch her, both of them looking up at the offending paper.

"Merlin's stones!" shouted Ron. "Not again!"

Hogwarts is proud to announce that it will host a Hallowe'en Masquerade Ball this year, for students fourth year and up.

"Bloody hell," said Harry, echoing one of Ron's favoured sentiments. Memories from the Yule Ball came to mind, and he felt as though he was going to heave every meal he ever had out the window.

The room suddenly quieted. Ron and Neville turned their heads ever so slightly to the side. Lavender and Parvati were staring at them, and blushed when Ron made eye contact with them. The voice of his mother saying Oh, my Ronniekins, what a handsome boy you've become! resounded in his head, with a slightly ominous ring to it.

"Er, Hermione," whispered Ron nervously. "When a girl looks at you like a cat looks at a mouse, what's it mean?"

Hermione's eyes popped open, and she and Ginny both looked over at the girls, who appeared vulpine at the moment. The females of the house began to circle the small group, arms out and hands grabbing greedily.

"GERROFF!" screamed Ron when one girl, with long ash blonde hair and big blue eyes, grabbed his arm.

"RUN!" shrieked Ginny, and the group tore off through the door. A gaggle of girls followed them, bleating like sheep hopped up on speed.

"I'm going to murder Dumbledore," hissed Ginny through her teeth.

"Run now, plot crimes later," panted Hermione. "They're getting closer! Come on, Room of Requirement!"

Blaise strutted through the halls, deciding that he wanted a snack before bed. Next to him was Draco Malfoy, a silver haired boy with a nose sharper than a hatchet. Blaise wasn't particularly fond of Draco, but he didn't really mind him either.

A faint noise from the halls caught Blaise's attention.

"I'm going to go on ahead," said Draco, suddenly looking wary. Blaise nodded, and watched the boy flounce off. Another noise, louder but still quiet, drew his attention to the left.

It was Daphne Greengrass with a Ravenclaw girl. They were both giggling, and looking at Blaise in much the same manner that a hawk might view a mouse. Blaise frowned slightly, but said nothing, merely speeding up a little.

A muffled laugh forced his attention to the right. Pansy Parkinson was standing there, twirling her hair around her finger and smiling in what she imagined was a coy manner. Blaise shuddered slightly and started speed walking towards the kitchens. He wanted to run- something was very wrong- but Zabinis didn't run unless their lives were at stake.

He nearly yelped when a hand clasped his shoulder. Millicent Bulstrode was there, looking rather green.

"What is it, Millicent?" he whispered, dragging her alongside him. Millicent grabbed his arm and pulled him closer, whispering into his ear.

Blaise froze in mid-stride, Millicent looking around the hall like she expected a manticore to come out and maul them both.

"A ball?" he asked weakly. Millicent nodded, her grip on his arm bone-crushing.

The looks the girls were shooting him changed from slightly predatory to fiercely hungry. He began to sweat a bit; the Zabini's were a well-off family, and he knew he was blessed in the looks department. And balls were the normal place where mothers went insane, trussing their boys up and showering their daughters with clothes. Marriages were arranged because of the blasted things.

Millicent whimpered softly, then pinched Blaise as Daphne began to approach the two of them.

"Damn it all to the nine hells," muttered Blaise. He really didn't want to destroy his reputation over this.

"Oh, Blaisey," cooed Daphne, and Blaise resisted the urge to punch her in the nose. Blaisey?!

"Bla-ise," purred Pansy, coming up behind him.

"Oh, shit," muttered Millicent. "More social climbers behind us and to the left."

Blaise sighed, then shrank away when Daphne started plucking at his sleeve.

"Blaise," said the girls, coming closer and closer. "Blaise... what a lovely name.. you have such pretty eyes, Blaisey."

Blaise emitted a high-pitched howl, gathered his robes, took off at a dead run, and Zabini dignity be hanged. "Where's that room you said Potter and his friends used to gather at?"

"Top floor," whispered Millicent, striding alongside him. She looked behind her. "Mother of Circe!" she grunted. "RUN FASTER!"

In Ravenclaw tower, three students sprinted out the portrait door. Or rather, two sprinted and dragged along a small wisp of a girl, who was frowning thoughtfully at the chaos behind her.

"Luna!" hissed Terry, forcibly dragging her. "Come on!"

"What was the man thinking?" gasped Padma; she grabbed Luna's shirt and started pulling.

"I don't think he was," murmured Luna, happily being shunted down the hall alongside two of her red-faced Housemates.

The threesome continued to run until Terry ran headfirst into Susan Bones, clothes-lining her and forcing them both to the floor.

"Sorry," ground out Terry, hurriedly helping Susan to her feet.

"News broke out in your dorms too, huh?" asked Justin, who was looking very hunted at the moment. Terry nodded.

"Where should we go?" queried Susan, looking around anxiously.

"The Come-and-Go Room," suggested Luna, staring at the hall.

"The what?" snapped Terry.

"Room of Requirement. Stop talking and start running. I can hear the herd getting closer!" yelped Susan. The five students began running again, not stop until they reached the seventh floor.

Hermione grunted when she slammed into what appeared to be a brick wall. As she bounced back, she realised that she had, in fact, run directly into Millicent Bulstrode, who was standing in the doorway of the Room of Requirement and fanning Blaise.

"What the- Oh, it's you," said Millicent in a surprising casual voice. She eyed the Trio, Neville, Dean, and Ginny, eyebrow raised.

"The fangirls erupted in your dorms?"

"Yeah," wheezed Hermione, not caring that she was having a neutral exchange with the girl who had pounded her during second year.

"Who're you?" demanded Ron.

"That's cough Millicoughcent Bulstrode and Blaise Za-bini," choked out Hermione, "and I'm guessing that cough the Slytherin girls aren't much better than the Gryffindor girls."

"And how," breathed Blaise. "I thought they were going to eat me."

"I'm sure the thought crossed their mind at least once," commented Hermione dryly. She turned as she heard more footsteps, ready to hex the crowd into oblivion, then relaxed as the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws approached.

"They're like hyaenas," said Susan, wide-eyed and clearly horrified.

"This is insane," hissed Padma. "I refuse to go through that again. EVER."

"Agreed," said Harry curtly. "But what do we do?"

"Wait," said Blaise, waving a hand. "Why are you all trying to get out of going? I thought most of the students would jump at the chance to attend one."

"Because balls are dangerous," stated Hermione, shutting the door to the Room and watching it melt away.

"Dangerous?" scoffed Blaise. "What, because someone might spike the punch with firewhiskey? That's not dangerous, that's tradition."

Hermione looked at him levelly, the adrenline in her blood starting to wear off. "Three days after the announcement of the last ball, I was ambushed by Lavender and Parvati. They slathered so much makeup on my face, I was sneezing concealer for a week. And don't get me started on corsets. I ended up sleeping in the first year boys dorm for a week until they agreed to leave me alone."

Blaise frowned. "Point well taken. But what do we do?"

The room was silent for a moment. Neville piped up. "We could always go under the Fidelius Charm."

"Right," scoffed Millicent. "Because Dumbledore won't miss several of his students mysteriously vanishing into thin air."

"He could get irritated over that," agreed Harry. "But we need a plan. I will not, will not! go to another one of these things."

Everyone turned to Hermione, who leaned against a wall, her formidable brain going to work.

"We're going to have to work together on this one," she said simply. "All of us. If we're going to get out of ball, it will require cooperation." She gazed at the Slytherins and the Gryffindors both. "We'll have to put aside our differences in order to escape."

The Gryffindor boys and Slytherin boy eyed one another warily, but with a modicum of respect. They approached each other, and were about to shake hands when the door suddenly reappeared. In tumbled Draco Malfoy, dignity shed and hair askew.

"Get them away from me!" he shrieked girlishly. He began to hyperventilate, only stopping when Millicent knocked the breath out of him.

"Zabini, they're everywh- what are you doing with Gryffindors?" he asked incredulously.

"Plotting my escape," said Blaise dryly.

"With Gryffindors?" echoed Draco.

"Shut up, Malfoy," spat Ron. "Get out of the room."

"Ron-" started Ginny, but he waved her off.

"Get out, Malfoy, or I'll-"

"You'll do no such thing," said Padma, coming between the two boys. "Like it or not, Ron, we need some cunning to get out of this, and a lot of it. Who better to help us than the Prince of Slytherin?"

"At least someone in this room recognises virtue when they see it," sneered Draco.

"And Draco will need brains, of which the Ravenclaws and Hermione can provide-"

"HEY!"

"-and some bravery and hard work as well. Like Hermione said, we're going to have to work together."

"HEY!"

"Shut up, Draco," said Millicent. "We've got work to do."