This story is AU piece that takes place in a universe where Ginny didn’t break up with Dean until after her time in Hogwarts, and she never realised Harry’s feelings for her.
This was actually a Challenge idea I was proposing for the month of October to Celebrate Halloween, but the Challenge Story had already been decided before I submitted my idea. (I often email suggestions for Challenge Stories) It’s based on the tvtropes ‘Masquerade Ball’ trope, a story set at a masked ball where everyone's identity is sufficiently obscured for any number of misunderstandings.
I am a huge fan of this type of story, and have read loads ranging from Lily and James falling in love during a masked ball, not realising their true identities till later, to similar themed stories with Draco and Hermione, Harry and Draco, Ron and Angelina, but very few with Harry and Ginny, though none of them really compared to the Lily / James ones I utterly adore. This is probably a very overused and overdone clichéd fiction idea. But here’s my unique take on it.
Enjoy!
|
The Masked Ball | ||||||
|
Category: Alternate Universe Characters:Harry/Ginny, Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom, Ron Weasley Genres: Comedy, Fluff, Humor, Romance Warnings: Extreme Language, Intimate Sexual Situations, Mild Sexual Situations, Negative Alcohol Use, Sexual Situations Rating: R Reviews: 36 Summary: You are cordially invited to the 372nd Annual Ministry of Magic Masked Halloween Ball! Tired of being recognised everywhere he goes as ‘The Boy Who Lived’ and ‘The Saviour of the wizarding world’, Harry decides that at this years Halloween Masked Ball he’ll go that extra mile with his disguise, so he won’t get hounded by the press all evening, or stalked by fan-girls all night. Tired of being recognised everywhere she goes as ‘the star seeker of the Holyhead Harpies’ and ‘The daughter of the newly appointed Deputy Minister of Magic’, Ginny decides that at this years Halloween Masked Ball she’ll go that extra mile with her disguise, so she won’t get hounded by the press all evening, or stalked by fan-boys all night. What could possibly go wrong? Hitcount: Story Total: 13604; Chapter Total: 2770 Awards: View Trophy Room Author's Notes: |
Next |
|
||||
|
Chapter 1 — Let’s Be Other People. “You know what your problem is, Red?” smirked the blonde-headed girl. “You just need to get laid!” Oh, here we go again! Ginny thought. Not more than five minutes in the door, and this conversation was starting again. “Honestly, Ginny! It’s just sex! Everybody does it!” chimed in the dark-haired girl. Ginny shook her head. Her two flatmates were at it again! “I don’t want to know!” she replied, “Please keep me out of your sordid little schemes, especially the ones revolving around boys!” “You have to get back on the Hypogriff, sweetie!” Continued Susanne “How long’s it been since Rupert or Ralph or whatever his name was?” “Randall,” said Ginny, feeling the bile now rising in the pit of her stomach “And I really don’t want to hear that man’s name mentioned ever again, thank you very much!” Out of all the flatmates she could have chosen, of all the girls on the Holyhead Harpies team, why on earth did she have to pick these two! “Well I don’t know how you can look yourselves in the mirror in the morning, is all! I mean, a different guy every weekend? There’s a word for that!” Ginny scolded. “Selfish?” grinned Marianne. “Lucky?” chuckled Susanne. “A scarlet woman!” stated Ginny. The two girls burst into fits of laughter at that, clutching their sides and rolling around of the sofa like two giggling little school kids. “Isn’t that three words, Red?” smirked Susanne, her face still flushed from all the laughing. “Really, have you two no shame?” gasped Ginny. “Honestly, Ginny! You need to lighten up!” laughed Marianne, the youngest of the three team mates. “Go out on the pull! Have a little fun! Live a little! You can’t go on hiding forever just because of a silly bit of gossip!” “If by silly little piece of gossip” Ginny began, her temper flaring, “you mean the three pages of scandalous lies they printed about me the Daily Prophet, then, yes, I think I have a good reason for not…uhhh…going out on the pull, or, for that matter, go anywhere near members of the opposite sex ever again! Seriously!?” It was now over three months since she had been out the front door, except to Quiddich practice and actual matches, and family meetings. The silly bit of Gossip the girls had been referring to was a three page ‘exclusive’ interview with her then-boyfriend, Randall McDuggan, a rather vile character who had swept Ginny off her feet, or so she had thought at the time, just to get his five-minutes of fame dishing the dirt on the star seeker of the Holyhead Harpies. And boy, could that man dish dirt! He was lucky to have only spent three days in St.Mungos’ after she was finished with him! “All we’re saying, Ginny, is you need to get out more,” Susanne smirked. “Go on a few dates. Meet a few nice men. You don’t need to shag every one of them…but it helps!” she finished with a wide grin. “Yea,” laughed Marianne. “Live a little! Just look at us, we’re out every weekend, a different guy on our arm! You only live once, sweetie!” “Honestly! I just don’t know how you get away with it!” Ginny grumbled, shaking her head at them. “I mean, look at me? I go out with one guy since Hogwarts, who turns into a complete tosser, and have my love life practically plastered across the papers, while the two of you have guys left, right, and centre, and you’re never in the press! It’s just not right!” The two girls glanced at each other, a wicked grin on their lips, then, stared at Ginny. “What?” “Should we tell her our little secret?” said Susanne, her grin spreading from ear to ear. “What secret?” asked Ginny. ”Should we?” said Marianne, wearing the same smirk as Susanne. “What secret?” Ginny asked again. “What??!” “And THEN they said I needed to go out and get…get…LAID! I mean, what are those girls like! They’re a nightmare!” Hermione was clutching her sides with laughter, while Ron looked quite nonplussed. “And I hope you told them you would do no such thing!” he said, “No sister of mine…” Ginny laughed. “Really, Ron, what do you take me for?” Harry was laughing too. “Well at least someone’s having some fun these days! Mind swapping flat mates with me? Mine are like an old married couple!” “Oh, no, Harry” Ginny laughed. “They’d eat you alive!” “I happen to like the sound of that!” grinned Harry. “At least it would be better than my last few dates! They seemed to only be after one thing! And not the thing I’d have hoped for!” Harry’s last few dates, if you could even call them that, seemed genuine from what he had at first believed. But he should have known better. It had always been like this since Hogwarts, since he defeated Voldemort. Not one girl had ever been interested in dating just plain old boring Harry. They all wanted a piece of ‘The Boy Who Lived’, or ‘The Saviour of The Wizarding World’, or whatever the press was calling him these days. Yes, he understood full well why Ginny was shutting herself away these days after the all that rubbish in the Daily Prophet. Indeed, the Ministry had to intervene on several occasions on his own behalf for the very same reason, stopping stories from being published just moments from printing, when many of his so-called dates, after just one dinner with Harry, had gone to the press with all sorts of wild accusations, all looking for their five minutes of fame. There was one girl, Penelope Woods, who, after meeting Harry at a bar one night, and talking to him only briefly, had gone to the press the next day claiming to be pregnant with his secret love child! Then another, Juliette Fairfax, who Harry had met through the Ministry, who, after only two dates, had gone to the gossip rags, claiming to have ‘bedded’ Harry, and had planned on revealing their most intimate sexual secrets from their alleged wild nights of passion to the wizarding world at large, even though Harry had done no more than give her an innocent goodnight kiss. If only he could live, even for a day, as someone else. Just go out, meet a nice girl who didn’t see him as the ‘wizarding worlds most eligible bachelor’, as Witch Weekly had now started calling him, but as just as himself. How he envied all those people, who could just be themselves and go out, and enjoy their lives without having to worry about the press analysing their every move, or their pictures being in the papers the next day. At this rate, he’d never find a nice girl, one who liked him for himself, not just for his fame or fortune. “Oh, you haven’t heard the best part…” continued Ginny. “You know how you were asking why neither of them has been in the gossip rags, even though they’re both star beaters on the team. You’re going to love this!” “What?” came a few of the voices around the table, intrigued to discover the next revelation, Ginny’s flatmates, and their atrocious behaviour, had been the topic of discussion at nearly all of these dinners. “When they go out on the pull, or even to parties…they don’t go out as themselves!” Came her reply. And then, a stunned silence, and a confused look on quite a few faces around the table. “What?” gasped Hermione, the first to speak, “You mean they use… they use Polyjuice Potion? To pull Wizards? Oh my, well really! That’s totally wrong on every level!” Ginny laughed “Well close, but not actually as bad as that!” “So, what is it?” asked Neville, who had been listening to every word now with rapt attention. “Well,” began Ginny, “They call it an ‘extreme witch makeover’! They change their hair colour, eye colour, and everything! They even change their complexion! They totally make themselves over, and get themselves all glammed-up, so that no one recognises them!” “What??!” gasped Ron. “That’s bloody terrible!” Harry laughed. He had been expecting something faaarrrr more devious, far far more dastardly, especially after all the stories he’d heard so far about Ginny’s flatmates. “Yeah, Muggles do that!” said Harry, laughing again. “It’s not really that bad, they dye their hair blonde or red or whatever when they’re going out, put on makeup to cover their blemishes, maybe curl their hair if it’s straight, some even wear hair pieces, wigs, some get their teeth whitened, change their look, it’s really not that big of a deal!” “Well, it’s a little bit different when witches do it, Harry. They use magic, after all. You should have seen Susan and Marianne after they showed me, I could hardly recognise them! Seriously!” said Ginny “I mean, they didn’t change their faces that much, but with a different hair colour and hairstyle, and a different eye colour, and you know how freckled Marianne is, she did a spell so that she wasn’t freckled at all! I would hardly have recognised her myself, if I didn’t know who she really was!” Now THAT got Harry’s attention! “Seriously? And you hardly recognised them?” he gasped. Wow! He thought, how awesome would that be? To be able to go out, to be able to have a little fun without everyone watching your every move, every action, pointing at you? Without being recognised. Harry liked the sound of that, and he wasn’t the only one. “I don’t know? I am considering it myself?” said Ginny, a mischievous smile on her lips “They have asked me to go out with them next time they have a proper night out. I mean, we do have the Ministry Ball coming up in a few weeks, and while I wasn’t planning on going, I could be doing with a good night out. You know, one without everyone pointing and judging. One where I’m not Ginny Weasley, star seeker of the Holyhead Harpies, or Ginny Weasley, daughter of the newly appointed Deputy Minister of Magic! It would be good to have a little fun once in a while.” Harry understood EXACTLY what she meant. “Uh-uh, no way!” said Ron, shaking his head. “Sorry, Ginny. But you’re not going out with those…those trollups! You’re a Weasley! You have a reputation to keep! You know how mum feels about this stuff? She wouldn’t let me and Mione even move in together until we got engaged! Actually, I think she’d have made us wait till we were married until we even got passed second base, if dad hadn’t talked her down! She never really calmed down about us living under the same roof until we finally got hitched! And you’re her daughter! You know how she feels about this! All that ‘pure-blood family’ stuff and ‘traditions to uphold’ nonsense!” “Don’t worry, Ron. I’m really not planning on shagging anyone!” Ginny laughed. “I really don’t think this is a good idea!” Ron grumbled. “Actually, I think it’s a GREAT idea!” grinned Harry. “And I think I’d like to try it too? So who’s all up for helping make me over? I could do with a night out or two where I’m not the centre of attention, one where I could mingle in the crowd and not get hassled every five minutes. Enjoy myself without the press watching my every move!” Ron groaned. “Not you too?” “Ron, I know how you feel about your sister’s honour and all that,” said Harry, “but you really don’t know what it’s like dating or meeting people these days, especially when you’re famous! You met Hermione in Hogwarts, and that was before either of you were big celebrities! It’s really hard. You do remember all that stuff she went through with that Randall slimeball? Or that Juliette nutter I went out with? How are either of us meant to find a nice guy or girl with our faces plastered over the papers every few days? But if we went out incognito we might meet someone nice who likes us for who we are, not what we are. Then, if we really hit it off with the other person, we can reveal our true identity, and just explain to them we’re just out in disguise to escape the press, and then hopefully see where it all leads.” “Yeah, Ron,” said Ginny defensively “and we’re not talking about taking Polyjuice Potion, or changing how we look too extremely! It’s not like I’m really chubby, and I’m changing my appearance to make myself look like a skinny girl, or hideously ugly and changing my appearance to look pretty. We’re just talking about superficial changes here, hair colour, hair style, eye colour, and complexion, so we’re not recognised, we’re not talking about changing into completely different people!” “Well, you have my support,” said Neville. “And mine!” said Hannah, giving them her nod of approval. “I really don’t think it’s fair neither of you can really get out, and let your hair down once in a while, without being hounded by the press, or get weirdo fan-boys or psycho stalker groupies following you around all night!” “Okay, okay!” said Hermione. “I’m in!” “Can I just go on record as saying I think this is a really, really bad idea?” stated Ron, his arms crossed, looking thoroughly disapprovingly at his sister. “Really, Ronald,” laughed Hermione, “what’s the worst that could happen?” And that’s how it all began… |
| Reviews 36 |
Next
|
