Six of One

"I'm home! And I've brought dinner," Draco shouted as he opened the door to his apartment. Pansy looked up from her magazine as he placed the three pizza boxes on the dining table.

"Draco, you've got to stop buying takeaway every time it's your night to do the cooking!" Pansy complained.

"If I cooked, we'll all end up in St. Mungo's with food poisoning, so this really is for the best," Draco replied as Pansy, Luna, Cedric and Oliver joined him around the table. "Where's Ginny?"

"Here I am!" Ginny sang as she walked in the door, carrying half a dozen shopping bags. "Sorry I'm late, Madam Malkin's was having a huge sale!"
She sighed as she saw the pizza on the table. "Pizza again? God, Draco, could you be any more lazy?" she said.

Draco rolled his eyes as he muttered "Accio wine," and waved his wand in the direction of the kitchen.

"Ugh, I really shouldn't be eating this," Cedric said as he blotted his slice of pizza with a paper napkin. "I'm trying to lose some weight before my date on Friday night."

"Who with?" Luna asked.

"Oh, this really gorgeous French guy I met at Gringotts," he replied.

"God, this Harry Potter. This is the second time he's been on the front page this week. So what if he saved the wizarding world and led the England Quidditch team to their victory three years running? He's still a scrawny scar-head prat," Oliver said viciously as he frowned at a picture of Harry Potter on the front of the Daily Prophet.

"Ooh, speaking of Harry, this arrived today," Luna said as she reached over to a side table and extracted a thick, fancy-looking cream envelope from a pile of parchment.

"It's Potter! Potter! Not Harry! We're not on first-name terms with that man!" Oliver yelled.

Ginny ripped open the envelope and made a face. "Mr and Mrs Harry Potter cordially invites you...ugh, gross, it's Harry and Hermione's annual Christmas ball."

The entire table groaned.

"We're not going!" Draco said firmly.

"Of course we're not! Now, who's making up the excuse? Not it!" Oliver shouted.

"Not it!" Ginny, Draco, Luna and Pansy exclaimed in unison.

"Okay, Cedric will," Pansy said. She turned to Cedric, who had buried his nose in a thick black book.

"What are you reading?" Ginny asked as she took a sip of wine.

Cedric looked up. "Oh my God. It's the best book ever. I found it in Flourish and Blotts today. It's called Twilight and it's this story about these sexy vampires...I'm so loving this Carlisle...What are we talking about?"

He saw the invitation in Ginny's hand.

"Oh! Harry's Christmas ball! He came into the salon today for a haircut and I told him we can all go," Cedric said with his dimpled smile.

Draco and Ginny screamed in horror, while Oliver looked like he was about to throw up his slice of pizza into his glass of wine.

"It's okay! It's okay." Luna reassured everyone. "Look, we'll just write Harry...er, I mean Potter...a nice little note to say that Cedric got his dates mixed up and we actually can't go!" Luna said as she scrawled on a piece of parchment. She attached it to their owl, Pooky's, leg and sent him out the window. "Problem solved!" She turned to the table and grinned.

"Thank God!" Oliver sighed.