Raven awoke from a particularly nasty dream with fear piercing her bones. Her dream had shaken her to her very core and she needed some sort of comfort and there was one person she replied on more than any other for this, and all she could do was hope he was still awake.

Padding down the stone stairs from her dormitory and across the tower to the stairs to the boys dormitories, Raven soon found herself opening the door to the room shared by Fred, George and Lee.

As she had hoped, George was still awake, sketching his ideas on a piece of spare parchment with the pencil she had given him the first time he had ever visited her famiy's theatre, she had taken it from the gift shop and he had treasured it, along with the rubber duck dressed up as William Shakespeare that her father found so hilarious and was the sole reason he had created a gift shop in the theatre in the first place. Perhaps he was right as the william Shakespeare ducks were a best seller.

George looked up and smiled at her as she gently closed the door behind her. The others were asleep, so she padded softly over to George's bed and sat on the end, looking a right mess with her hair wild, the grey joggers she wore as pyjama bottoms, which were actually Mercury's but he was so used to her stealing his clothes that he hadn't actually noticed they were gone, and the t-shirt that had the name of her parents' theatre on the front and 'crew' on the back, but George did not comment on her look and she was thankful for it.

"What's wrong?" He asked her, noticing the fear on her face. "Another dream?" She nodded at this. "What did you see?"

"Death." She whispered. "All I saw was death, George it was horrible." Her eyes filled up with tears, she couldn't take it anymore, it was breaking her, slowly but surely it was breaking her.

"Hey, come here." He held his arms out and she slowly maneuvered her way into his arms, he held her until her tears were gone and then he spoke. "It may not happen Raven, nothing is set in stone."

"But what if it does?" She whispered, her eyes glistening with tears as she looked up at him.

"But what if it doesn't?" He challenged back, managing to get her to give him a weak smile. "Now come on, you can help me with these designs." He shuffled up so she could sit beside jim properly and tucked his duvet over her knees so she wasn't cold, not that it was the coldest night of the year, but the weather was changing quickly.

She soon fell asleep, with her head on his shoulder, feeling safe surrounded by her friends.

^^^
Having not commented on once again finding Raven in the dormitory, the boys were consolidating their ideas, whilst Raven daydreamed about the yule ball. Her excitement had not dwindled in the slightest, and she was only growing more excited as each day passed. Hermione and Ginny had already helped her choose her dress and all of them were excited for the time to come for them to dress up.

"Raven!" Snapped out of her thoughts, Raven stared at George in surprise.

"George!" She shot back in the same tone, her mind swirling as her daydreams faded.

"Come on, we've got study hall." He told her, pulling her up from her seat. She grabbed her homework and followed him, as they reached the great hall he stopped and looked at her with a very serious expression on his face. "I need to ask you something." He told her.

"I haven't done anything." She didn't like seeing him act so seriously, being so used to his light-hearted nature it unnerved her to see him in this way.

"No that's not-" George cut himself off with a sigh. "Do you want to go to the yule ball with me?"

She froze in shock for a solid thirty seconds before smiling at him as she finally processed what he had just said. "I would love to."

"Really?" She was not impressed with how surprised her was.

"Of course!" She rolled her eyes at him. "Come on, the other will be wondering where we are."

They reached the Gryffindor table and placed themselves down next to Fred and Lee, who were opposite Ron, Harry and Hermione.

"What took you so long?" Fred grumbled as Raven noticed Hermione staring at her.

"Raven couldn't find her homework." George made up some pathetic excuse that Fred was unlikely to buy, but he did for whatever reason.

'What?' Raven mouthed at Hermione.

'Did he ask you?' She mouthed back, Raven rolled her eyes.

"Yes." She hissed, Hermione just grinned back at her, Raven could tell she would tell Ginny before the hour was up, and she wasn't looking forward to the questions and 'I told you so' s she would have to endure.

Beside her, Raven watched Fred scribble Ron a note, which boldly stated : 'get a move on or all the good ones will be gone'

Scoffing and shaking her head, she turned her attention to her herbology homework.

"Who are you going with?" Ron hissed across the table. Raven looked up in interest, who was Fred going with? Fred just smirked and threw a wad of scrap parchment at Angelina.

Angelina was not impressed with the assault. "What?" She hissed.

"Do you want to go to the ball with me?" Fred mouthed, illustrating his question with some interesting hand movements that showed he definitely did not know how to dance.

"Yeah alright." Angelina nodded, Raven began to wonder how George had struggled with it so much if Fred could get a date that easily.

Fred pulled a face at his younger brother and went back to his work, Ron looked sour.

"Hermione, you're a girl." Ron said to Hermione, Raven worked desperately to conceal her laughter.

"Well noticed." Hermione wasn't having any of it and it just made it harder for Raven to hold in her laughter.

"This isn't going to end well." Lee whispered to her, Raven just nodded, knowing if she opened her mouth she would not burst out laughing.

And in fact it didn't, Hermione revealed she had already been asked and then flounced off, leaving the boys dumbfounded.

"At least it's not just us, Neville hasn't got a date either." Harry tried to be positive.

"Neville has a date." Raven told them on her way back from getting her homework checked by Snape.

"Well know I'm just depressed!" Ron sighed in defeat.