Louis isn't in this one, but still I own not Harry Potter, but I do own my Gary Wood character but his father still alluded my ownership. ARRRGH!

Reduced to Puddles

Dom was having a rotten afternoon, first her owl wouldn't leave the Owlry, then her sister made sure she wasn't able to go to Hogsmeade with her, then she slipped in the hallway.

She sat on the floor in the hallway not bothering to get up. She was outside Moaning Myrtle's bathroom and she was about to join in on the faint sobbing she could hear through the thick, stone wall. She was a 5th year for crying out loud and she couldn't even get herself through one lousy day.

"You okay?" Came a voice from behind her. Dom slowly turned a little to see the person who had found her in this miserable state. She was fully prepared to kill the person, laughing out a line from a muggle movie and letting the person think she was insane.

She was instead faced by an entirely different situation. Gary was standing there, looking down at her. He had been around Teddy, there by, she had heard of him. He and Teddy were both on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. She ended up smiling up at her personal savior from pyschokiller-ness. "Maybe."

He slid down the wall landing in a puddle of water, but he didn't seem to mind. "You doing anything worthwhile here in the hallway?"

Dom couldn't help but blush a little. She wasn't used to getting attention from people, they usually paid attention to Victoire instead. Gary smiled at her. She didn't trust her voice very much so she settled for nodding.

Gary started tracing patterns in the water. Dom watched as he did. She was reminded of her DADA class when she learned about pensieves.

"Did you know that water is one of the most healing of the magical elements?" Gary had said it out of the blue. Dom looked up suddenly taking in his face.

She wished she was like her sister with the best line and able to go on gracefully, but that wasn't the case. "No, who said that?" She again watched the patterns and wand movements in the water. She envied their fluidity.

Gary looked up. "Carronius Sorreth, a famous Slytherin poet." She was surprised he actually knew. "He also said that love can cushion any fall, and even take away your scars."

Dom smiled at the picture across the hallway. Gary looked up and she felt his gaze on her. "Do you have your wand?"

He pulled out his wand but looked at her confused. She stood up and waved the wand in a motion to dry herself. Gary followed suit, Dom even repeated the spell on the 6th year.

Gary smiled at her gratefully. She wanted to skip away, but first asked herself, WWVWD, What Would Victoire Weasley Do? Dom took a moment to figure out what her sister would do. Then decided to skip away like she had originally planned.

"Hey, Dom?" She hadn't even been given the chance to turn the corner. She turned to Gary and watched as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Wanna go to Hogsmeade with me?"

"I can't, I have detention." Dom was irritated enough because she couldn't study now she couldn't go with Gary and Teddy and Vic, either. She groaned to herself.

"Well, guess I'll see you later." Gary took his wand and walked away. Dom slumped, but didn't fall down again. She huffed out a large breath of air trying to move the hair from her face. She really needed to learn to keep herself in check.

...

Dom sat at professor Haneline's door. She waited patiently for her scrubbing duty to begin. Around the corner she heard footsteps. She stood up and brushed herself off. She almost toppled back to the floor as Gary barreled around he corner into her. She ended up against the wall with a very cute Gary Wood pressed against her.

He grinned playfully. "Heya, scrubbing buddy." He moved away from her. She looked at him flabbergasted for a moment. She ended up smiling at his bashful look.

They were finally broke from their content silence when Professor Haneline walked quickly around the corner. "I forgot all about detention, you'll have to go without it today."

Dom smiled and grabbed Gary's hand. They had all kinds of time to talk, without cauldron scrubbing noises and putrid smells.

Dom laced her fingers into Gary's, she only noticed this after the fact, and then was hyperaware of the fact he did the same. Dom blushed. "Do you still want to go to Hogsmeade? Teddy and Victoire can't be too far ahead of us." Dom looked up at Gary.

Gary shrugged. "I'd like to go, but we don't need to catch up with Teddy and Victoire, if that's okay with you." Dom's eyes doubled in size. He wanted to go just the two of them.

Dom, again without tact or graciousness, spelled out the almost obvious. "So, is this a date?" After she said it she closed her eyes tightly and tried her best not to run into a suit of armor.

Gary had been quiet for a while, so out of curiosity, and stubbing her toe on an armor stand, she opened her eyes a little. Gary stood there red as any Weasley and looked like he was biting his tongue.

Dom stopped suddenly and almost ran into a wall in the process. "What's wrong?" She placed her hands on her hips; it was against one of Victoire's hundreds of Laws for Looking: the Guide to HIM.

"Nothing." Gary's voice was high and pitchy. Victoire didn't have any help for this. Dom knew she'd done something wrong, she was a Weasley after all.

Dom wanted to say something… anything. "I'll go get my coat, I'll meet you at the doors in 20 minutes?"

Gary grinned. "Sure, I'll see you then."

Dom ran through the halls, RAVENCLAW WAS A LOT FURTHER AWAY FROM WHERE SHE HAD SAID THAT THAN GRYFFINDOR! She yelled mentally to herself, now she'll be all sweaty.

She said the password and slid through the small library that was the Ravenclaw Common Room. She grabbed her large hooded cloak and her change purse and scrambled to the hall again. Dom was breathing hard and knew her hair was tampered by the humidity, Victoire's words not hers.

Dom got to the doors just as they opened and a gaggle of students trudged in. Dom stopped in her tracks and waited. In the gaggle she saw Fred and Molly fighting over a bag from Honeydukes and one of the Ravenclaws in Gary's year lecture a Gryffindor on her eating habits.

Dom was feeling pretty good about herself. But her bliss was short lived. Her stomach plummeted to her fidgeting toes. Victoire walked in arm and arm with Teddy. Dom stepped quickly to fall into the Armor's shadow. She looked down at her feet.

Victoire was the perfect one, the older one, the prettier one.

"That isn't true." Dom jumped about a foot off the floor. The helmet started it's descent to the floor. Gary, calling on his chaser skills, grabs the metal just before it hits the stone.

Dom let out her breath. "You should have popped up during the Christmas party last year when I dropped the glass pitcher my mom had sent in from France." Dom looked up at Gary, her cheeks felt hot and she knew they must be red.

"Come on." Gary sat the helmet on the stand. Dom silently agreed with the decision not to place it back on the armor, who knew what type of trouble it would cause since she was standing there?

Gary started walking toward the door. Dom was about to follow but quickly hopped back behind the armor. Teddy had seen Gary and now they were talking; Dom wasn't up to talking to her sister. Gary smiled and nodded at something Teddy said and Victoire looked at Gary's ear annoyed. Dom didn't understand how Victoire could do that and not get caught.

"So, you're done with your detention?" Teddy looked at Gary confusedly. Victoire's eyebrows raised.

Victoire looked between Teddy and Gary. "Gary didn't have detention, Dom did." Victoire said matter-of-factly.

Dom could tell by the color of Gary's ears that he was blushing. "We had detention today." He put a lot of emphasis on the 'we' part.

Vic's eyebrow's knit together, in the way that would look bushy and male if it were on Dom's face, in their irritatingly perfect way. "What teacher?"

Dom watched silently. "Professor Haneline." Teddy jumped in.

Victoire looked back to Gary, confusion carved into her features. "You don't have potions."

Dom hadn't even known that, see how observing she is, not. Dom then realized the further implications of that comment. Gary had gotten in trouble just so she wouldn't be alone.

Victoire looked at Gary like he was crazy. "Why would you get detention with Professor Haneline on a Hogsmeade weekend?"

"Because he was bored and wanted to prank her." Teddy started pulling on his girlfriend's arm. Dom couldn't remember a time when they weren't together, but she could remember a time when she and Victoire had gotten along. It wasn't that long ago even.

Dom was in Ravenclaw; Victoire was in Gryffindor; that was when all of this started happening.

"Why would you go to detention with her?" Dom didn't want to hear the rest. Vic always took her things, or made them no longer fun; she's just up to the same antics as always.

There was a loud crash where the shield of armor fell, the set of armor scattered across the floor. Dom ran out of the room. She didn't know where to go, just that anywhere was better than there.

Her autopilot function kicked in. When she finally gave a care about where she was, she found herself in the astronomy shelves. The astronomy tower had an entire section for books; it was so that kids that needed there use in the late night classes didn't have to go through the sleeping school to the library.

She sank down onto the chairs in the secluded musty cell. She wanted to sink into the floor, maybe even curl up in her head for an hour or two. She wasn't that lucky though.

She heard a set of footsteps getting closer. At first she hoped it was Gary, he seemed to make her feel better. But the familiar clicking sound drove the peaceful though of Gary-ful conversation from her jelly brain. The clicking was from Victoire's shoes; she had got them when they went with Mummy to France over the summer.

Victoire rounds the corner and looks at Dom. "Hey."

"Hello." Dom wasn't the rude sort. She turned her body away from Victoire's soul searching eyes and to the calculating pages of Astronomy books.

Reading usually calmed Dom; it was a hint from an early age that she would be a Ravenclaw. Stars by Felicia Stires, Stars by Grason Hopkins, The Stars by Sarah Golden, The Heavens and Their Hint to the Past and Beyond by Deguis Samson, and The Sun and Stars by Chelsea Gregory; Astonomists seemed to have no imagination and a strange fascination with stars.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Dom rolled her eyes without letting Victoire see.

She turned slightly. "I was hoping Gary had came to talk to me."

Victoire nodded and sat down at a chair. "Gary and Teddy are trying to put together the armor you knocked over; this left me to run after you."

Dom sighed. "Please leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible." Victoire snorted. Her eyes went wide and she covered her mouth and nose.

Dom cracked a small smile. "Did you do that on purpose?"

"It got you to talk to me, I wish I had." Dom pulled her legs up to her chin. Victoire looked at her for a moment before doing the same. "So, Gary likes you?"

Dom shrugged. "I guess so."

Victoire nudged Dom with her elbow. "You guess so, did you see the color red her turned?" Victoire lifted her irrationally perfect eyebrows. "You should go out with him."

Dom raised one of her thick eyebrows. "Why, I'm not perfect enough, you have pasted that to the underside of my eyelids since I was little."

Victoire bit her stylishly glossed lips. "Well, you've made sure I knew that you were the smarter one." Victoire buried her petite nose into her knees.

Dom looked over to Victoire confusedly. "What do you mean?"

Victoire tilted her head and her flawless blonde hair fell to the side. "You know, getting better grades and being in Ravenclaw. You were always the smart child." Victoire looked over to Dom through her long eyelashes.

Dom tilted her head. "I never knew."

Victoire smiled slightly. "I didn't think you did."

There was silence for a while. Dom took the time to read a few more book titles. Planets and Galaxies by Grace Smith and Expasion and Lumos of the World by Frida Zwingli.

"Gary's a good guy." Dom took a moment to figure out she had said it.

Victoire took a few seconds longer. "What?"

Dom took a deep breath. "Gary's a good guy, why do you think he would have taken an interest in me?" Dom shoved her freckled face into her patellas.

Victoire's hand rested on Dom's shoulder. "You are pretty and smart and funny. Guys go for the adorable klutz. You are confident. You've got it all."

Dom shook her head. "No you've got it all, the hair, the lips, the complexion. I've got freckles and bushy eyebrows."

Victoire shoook her head. "You just don't see it."

Dom rolled her eyes, not bothering to hide it. "What says I like him anyway?"

Victoire grins slightly. "The color of you face right now." Dom shoves Vic playfully. "But really, haven't you always liked him?"

Dom shook her head slightly. "I didn't think I did."

Vic smirks. "You've liked him ever since you had to help him with potions. I remember when you wouldn't stop talking about him."

"You remember that?" Dom's feet hit the floor.

Victoire's feet gracefully touch the floor again. "Of course I can. I also remember Gary telling Teddy all about his smart cousin. I was just the pretty one, again."

Victoire's face, suddenly looking fake, stared toward the floor. Dom followed suit. "You're pretty without the make up. Your smart, maybe not in book smarts, but in the way that gets a girl friends or popular."

Vic nodded. "So… do you like Gary?" Vic sounded genuinely curious.

Dom sat up straight and nodded curtly. "Yep, I think I do."

Dom smiled. "We finally have something to talk about again." Vic said smiling at her younger sister. "We can talk about dates and kisses and-"

Dom's eyes went wide. "I don't plan on having any of that anytime soon. Have you already kissed him and… everything?"

Victoire got red. Dom noticed that when her sister blushed she had freckles. "No, Teddy and I have talked about it, a little, but I told him I wasn't ready for anything… besides, Dad'd kill him."

Dom nodded along with her sister. "I just want to concentrate on figuring out how to like someone."

Vic nodded silently. "I need to concentrate on talking with my sister."

Dom thought for a moment. "That too."

They smiled at each other.

"So," Victoire said, "how does he make you feel?"

Dom smiled then said softly. "Like I've been reduced to puddles."

…

Teddy nudged Gary in the arm. "Chicks, huh?"

Gary carefully placed the Helmet on the top of the suit of armor. He shrugged. "They make you feel weird, like goo."

Teddy shook his head. "I know right, and they can be in horrid moods, kind of like moms."

Gary turned to Teddy and they started walking toward the Gryffindor Common room. "So, feeling like puddles of goo is normal."

Teddy raised a purple eyebrow at him. "Of course, at least it is in my experience."