- In the dining hall, Ron receives a gift from home. They are dress robes. Ugly ones. What is the world?
- Ahh, now we get it. McGonagall announces to Gryffindor that Hogwarts is hosting the Yule Ball at Christmas, and they are going to be expected to attend and dance.
- Our main characters are not super thrilled.
- Now we get kind of a montage of dance prep and dance anxiety among the students.
- Back in their quarters, Neville gets to work practicing his dance moves. At least one student is looking forward to the dance.
- Then, flashing forward a bit, Ron and Harry try to figure out how to ask a girl to go with them. Harry moans about the fact that the ladies travel in packs, which makes it hard to ask them out privately.
- Meanwhile, Hagrid and Madame Maxime seem to be getting cozier, and Hermione is checking out Krum. Love (or one of its cousins) is definitely in the air.
- Then, in Snape's class, Ron is still obsessing about the fact that they still don't have dates.
- Ron ends up asking Hermione to go with him or Harry—and not in the most flattering way. Hermione huffily informs him that someone else has already asked her.
- Harry finally gets Cho Chang, the girl he likes, alone and asks her to the dance. Unfortunately, she's already been asked by and accepted someone else. She seems pretty disappointed.
- Back in the common room, Ron comes in all shell-shocked with a bunch of people leading him. He had asked Fleur to the dance. Apparently, it was pretty traumatizing.
- Meanwhile, Harry sees the Patil twins walks by. He seems to get an idea.