Prompt: i invited you on a date on our next visit to hogsmeade, too bad i can't seem to do anYTHING RIGHT. SORRY I DIDN'T MEAN TO SPILL HOT BUTTERBEER ALL OVER YOUR LAP, I PROMISE I'M JUST NERVOUS.

(I thought this idea was so cute!)

"This was stupid. This was stupid. This was so incredibly stupid."

Luna Lovegood came up to stand by Maura in front of the mirror. "Are you engaging in conversation with yourself?" she asked, putting on a pair of radish earrings. "I find those can be very productive. Or do you have an invisible friend present?"

"No, Luna, it's just me. Just me berating myself for my stupidity."

"I suppose even Ravenclaws are bound to enter a dalliance with stupidity from time to time," Luna said in her dreamy tone of voice. "What's troubling you? Did you walk into that nest of nargles by the library?"

"No, today's the Hogsmeade visit. And I asked Jane Rizzoli to go to Madam Puddifoot's with me. On a date. I asked her on a date."

"Oh," Luna said with a touch of wistfulness. "And she said no but you're both still going to Hogsmeade and you're worried it will be awkward so you wished you'd never asked."

"What? No, she said yes!"

Luna stopped talking to Maura's reflection and turned to look at her. "She said yes? That doesn't sound very stupid to me."

"I'm just…sometimes I feel like I'm not genetically set up for dating," Maura stammered. "And besides, Jane is so - well, she's so popular and funny and beautiful, what if she only said yes as a joke?"

Luna considered this. "Well, you may not be very popular but objectively I'd say you can be funny and you're quite lovely to look at. From what I can tell, Jane is a good person. She's best friends with Rom Weasley's brothers, and Ron Weasley is almost a friend of mine, and he's quite nice most of the time. So if you follow the logic it seems very unlikely that Jane would accept your invitation as a joke."

Surprisingly the conversation with Luna was encouraging, and Maura left Ravenclaw tower with a bouquet in hand and a spring in her step. She and Jane had agreed to meet by the library, which was approximately halfway between their dormitories. Jane was just late enough to allow Maura's insecurities to briefly resurface.

"Sorry, sorry I'm late!" she said, jogging up. "I was uh, I was doing some laps with Frost and forgot to account for time to clean myself up so I wouldn't show up in a sweat."

(This was a lie - she'd woken up with a huge pimple right between her eyebrows and had spent the better part of an hour trying to rid herself of it, making it worse, and finally taking Frost's advice to visit Madam Pomfrey. The Healer had a remedy which had worked immediately.)

"I'm glad you made it," Maura said, smiling brightly. She held out the flowers, trying not to sound as nervous as she felt. "I hope this isn't too forward - we've been covering courtship in Muggle studies, and Professor Burbage said girls often receive flowers on the first date. Is it too much? Should I have asked which kind you like?" Maura asked anxiously. She had enlisted Professor Sprout's help in choosing some particularly romantic magical flowers, but now worried if that was too impersonal.

Jane grinned. "These are amazing. Nobody's ever gotten me flowers before, even at home! Um, is it okay if we stop back at the Gryffindor dorm, though, so I can find a vase for them?"

"Actually the purplonium don't need to be put in water," Maura said excitedly. "According to Professor Sprout, so long as they're exposed to sunlight and fertilized with bowtruckle dung every month, they should last you a while! Ah… although you'd probably not want to have to carry those all around Hogsmeade, I understand. Let's go back to your dormitory, sorry!"

"Don't apologize!" Jane chuckled as they started to walk. "To be honest, I'm actually really glad you got me these. I mean, not just because I like them but because … well, I was really excited when you asked me out, but then I worried that maybe I'd somehow misinterpreted. I was trying to remember your exact wording, because I was afraid maybe you'd just meant you'd like to hang out as friends, and…" She laughed to cover up her self-consciousness. "Well, now I'm rambling! Sorry."

"Don't be sorry, I think you're cute! I- I mean I think it's cute."

They had just reached the Gryffindor Tower, and Jane teased her, "But you do think I'm cute, right?"

Maura shyly returned the smile. "Yes."

She then plugged her ears so Jane could safely give the password to The Fat Lady and duck inside Gryffindor tower. Fred and George hooted at her from the fireplace as she raced by with the flowers, and she squirted them with an augmenti charm on her way back.

For nearly the entire walk to Hogsmeade, both girls silently debated whether to try holding the other's hand. Neither did, because it felt like way too much way too soon. It was cold out anyway, and gloves/mittens weren't as enticing to hold as bare hands (yet). Jane had to work very hard not to make a face when they arrived at Madame Puddifoot's: it was exactly the kind of gross, lovey-dovey place that she'd normally avoid at all costs. It looked like an explosion of Hallmark cards. But she wouldn't ever be so rude as to make any demeaning comments about it when it had been Maura's choice.

For her part, Maura was mortified as a cheery waitress lead them to their table. She had just chosen to come here when she'd overheard Cho Chang raving about it in the common room - had she known it would be this grossly cute, she never in a Nicholas Flamel lifetime would've invited Jane here. Jane was way too cool for a place like this. Hell, SHE was too cool for a place like this, and that was saying something. As soon as they were seated and the hostess walked away, a handful of tiny pink and purple paper hearts fluttered and spontaneously fell on their table.

Several of the hearts got stuck in Jane's hair and she couldn't keep it together anymore. "Wow! This place sure has a lot of character!" she laughed, shaking her head to get rid of the paper hearts.

"Oh gosh, it's awful!" Maura squeaked. "I just heard some girls saying they liked it and usually I'm so thorough with my own research but I was anxious about asking you before I lost my nerve and that was stupid!"

"No, no, it wasn't stupid," Jane said earnestly, reaching across the table to take gentle hold of Maura's gesticulating hands. "And don't sweat it, this place is f…fine…"

She trailed off when someone dressed as Cupid started walking by tables, asking for requests he could play on his lute.

"Should we go to the Three Broomsticks?" Maura asked, pained by the expression on Jane's face.

"Oh, God yes," Jane responded at once, getting immediately to her feet.

Jane's attitude helped set a tone: she was roaring with laughter but not at Maura, just the place they'd escaped. Rather than feeling embarrassed, this helped Maura feel like she could laugh too, and they entered The Three Broomsticks in high spirits. Maura offered to pick up some drinks for them while Jane got a table.

It was funny how certain things affected people. Maura was sure that the many magical sights in Hogwarts had blown away a Muggle-born like Jane when she first arrived, but there wasn't much in the school that had similarly impacted a pureblood like Maura. Jane had whooped and hollered every time something new revealed itself, be it a moving staircase, a professor who turned into a cat, or a ghost floating through the dinner table. Nothing had ever really taken away Maura's breath like that before.

Perhaps there was some irony in the fact that what stopped her in her tracks was something as simple as a girl sitting at a table.

Jane had felt comfortable enough to take off her coat here (as opposed to Madam Puddifoot's, where she'd stayed bundled despite the hot interior as though her coat was a hazmat suit). She looked so lovely there, unashamedly wearing a very Muggle-y outfit: red and black plaid flannel with dark blue jeans, which Maura instantly declared the most attractive ensemble a person could wear. Jane was pulling her hair back into a ponytail, but missed a long strand that fell back into place by her cheek, grazing one of the deep-set dimples Maura had come to adore so much. She wished she'd brought a camera to capture this image, to be able to revisit it forever.

She'd thought this vision made her stop in her tracks, but instead she'd been walking to the table with the Butterbeers in hand feeling as if she were floating. Suddenly Jane was smiling up at her and she jumped, causing hot Butterbeer to slosh out of the mugs and onto Jane's pants.

"Merlin's beard!" Maura cried, setting the drinks down and reaching for a napkin. "I'm so sorry!"

"Whoa!" Jane laughed, reaching for Maura's wrist when the girl had unthinkingly been about to reach for her crotch with the cloth napkin. "I got it, thanks."

Maura mutely sat down, the redness of her face rivaling the color of Jane's scarf. Jane made quick work of the clean-up and took a sip of the Butterbeer, trying to be as casual as possible. When Maura remained stock-still, not touching her drink, Jane had to accept that casualness wouldn't cut it.

"Um, Maura? Can I ask you something?"

"Yes."

"You…you seem really nervous."

"Well, I'd rather you know that than think I purposefully spilled a hot beverage on you."

"I guess I'm just confused! I mean, you had the guts to ask me out and I said yes like, right away, and before we came here I told you how excited I'd gotten about it. What's got you so jittery? Is it something I did, or said? Can I do anything?"

Maura shook her head. "No, no, no, it's not you. It's me, oh gosh, you must think I'm so pathetic."

"You're somethin' alright," Jane said, smiling so as to look friendly.

Maura was silent for a few long, painful moments. This really wasn't the time to get into it all - how she'd been ridiculed and ostracized for much of her life because people didn't know how to relate to her or she to them. There were all the incidents of people saving seats for friends who never showed up, just so she wouldn't sit with them; two boys who'd asked her out during third year on dares; Professor Snape who somehow managed to make her feel low despite her high grades in his class. She'd overheard her own father bemoaning the fact that she'd been put it Ravenclaw, worried that it meant her focus was too much on her studies and not enough on other people. Luna Lovegood was her only close friend and Luna was younger and odd, she had no hidden agenda. By sixth year Maura had grown out of her awkward stage and boys had taken notice, but she was not confident (or interested) enough to care. Jane Rizzoli, though, she was irresistible…

Maura came out of her reverie to realize Jane's look of amusement had turned into one of concern; Maura figured she must look quite somber herself now.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "You're just so nice. I'm not used to people being so nice to me. It's second-nature for me to second-guess myself socially; I should really stop that."

"Hey, I'm here because I want to be here, okay? Here's a story. Summer after second year, I went home and my brother's school was having an end-of-year dance. My dad bugged me to go, and he said if any boys asked me to dance, no matter if I wanted to or liked them or not, I had to say yes."

"Why?" Maura asked, looking startled.

"Because asking someone to dance is intimidating. I'm sure he was rebuffed at a school dance once and it was hard for him and he wanted to prevent me from potentially causing that kind of pain. I thought that was pretty weak though, because he was prioritizing the boys' comfort over my own. I think about that a lot. I don't go out of my way to be a jerk, but I'm also not nice just for the sake of being nice. When you asked me out, I didn't say yes because I wanted to spare your feelings, or whatever. I said yes because I wanted to, because I think you're cute and you're smart and I'd like to get to know you better."

"Really?"

"Yes, really! Cross my heart and hope to die."

"Wh…what?"

"Eh. It's a muggle saying; never mind."

"Can I ask what it is about me that you find interesting?"

Jane answered the question because she knew Maura was honestly curious, she didn't just want her ego stroked. "You are still the only person I know who sits at full attention in every History of Magic class. Your study sessions have saved me from failing every year! But it's not like you study because you're worried about bad grades, it's like you're actually into the stuff. And I think that's so cool!"

"You do?"

"Yeah! I wrote home once complaining about my class work and my brother wrote back that if I could find a way to be bored with magical assignments, the problem was with me, not the work," she chuckled. "So I appreciate that you don't take a magical education for granted."

Maura smiled and finally took a sip of her Butterbeer. "Mm. Do you miss magic when you go home for the summers?"

"Yes and no. There are times it'd come in handy for sure, but I dunno, in a way it's also nice to remember my roots and it also keeps me from getting too reliant on magic. Practical skills are important too, and I think wizards forget that a lot."

"Practical skills."

"Yeah, like…" Jane cast about for ideas, then noticed a couple pieces of heart-shaped confetti from Madam Puddifoot's that were still in Maura's hair. "See, I could just take these out with a spell," she said, leaning across the table to pick them out. She stayed close, whispering, "but I think this is nice."

She gave Maura a short kiss on the corner of her mouth and sat back down. Maura grinned in return. "Please, be practical with me as much as you want!"