Disclaimer: World of Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling. For the "Snakes and Ladders Challenge" and "The If You Dare Challenge".

Prompt: Churning Stomach (#278)

Love, Friends and Yule Balls

His first foray into love was far from successful. Perhaps he should have expected that.

But then... hope was not a thing so easily quelled. It was a thing with claws that sunk deep into you, and teeth that snapped against threats made against it.

Morag McDougal.

Perhaps he'd simply aimed too high. The pretty, red-headed Ravenclaw was a handful. She was fiery, and exciting, and everything he simply wasn't.

She sparkled, and had wings while he... despite his upbringing was so down to earth, that he was probably burrowed six feet under.

His stomach was still churning, and he felt a pain near his chest that while dull, throbbed. He felt vaguely ill, and the morose air that encompassed him, was thick and could not be penetrated by the warmth of the common room.

"She said no?" Susan asked, as she sat on the golden, upholstered couch.

Justin looked up slowly at the kind girl now seated next to him, with her long strawberry colored hair plaited behind her.

Justin couldn't bring himself to speak. His throat held his vocal chords hostage, so he merely nodded his head.

The pitying look in his friend's eyes made him almost want to crawl into a hole and never come out again.

"What are you going to do now then?" Susan asked tentatively, her tone gentle and slightly nervous. Justin looked up, wondering why Susan would be behaving thusly and watched her blush and avert her gaze.

Strange, he thought.

"I don't think I'm going to go," Justin replied with a shrug of his shoulders, after clearing his throat. Susan looked up then, surprised and... disappointed?

"Justin... you can't be discouraged because one girl turned you down. You should still go... it will be fun," Susan started, causing Justin to shake his head. "Maybe... we could go together?" she offered, causing his brown eyes to snap to look at her once more, watching as her face turned a deeper shade of red.

"You want us to go together?" he asked slowly, somewhat perplexed.

"As.. f-friends, if you like," she said in a small voice, looking down and ringing her hands together.

For a while, silence hung between them as Justin studied Susan. Justin wasn't stupid, in fact, the hat had offered to place him in Ravenclaw, but Justin had been slightly intimidated by the prospect.

However, he couldn't help feeling that perhaps... he'd missed something. He felt that, perhaps Susan might fancy him and the idea, though new and unexpected, was not disagreeable to him. After all, Susan has been his friend since they were first years, and you couldn't ask for a kinder, sweeter, more attentive and loyal friend.

And she was pretty, even if she wasn't as slender or sparkly like some other girls.

"Sure Susan, that sounds like fun," he stated, smiling warmly, not wishing to hurt his friend, the way he'd been hurt earlier that day.

As she looked up in astonishment, her warm brown eyes sparkling, he felt his heart give a tentative twitter.

~FIN~

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