A/N: Chapter seven. Yeah. Seven. I think I published this on Tuesday? I don't remember. Anyways, it's Thursday and this is chapter seven. So, yeah. To everyone who keeps reading and reviewing, I love you guys. All of you.

Chapter 7: Will

I always knew Dylan was annoying, but, really. Really?

"Oh yeah, guys, we'll go to the masquerade ball it'll be awesome!" he'd said.

"Masquerade?" Scor had asked.

"Ball?" Sam had asked.

"We?" Al had asked.

"Go to?" I'd asked.

In retrospect, our voices had gotten progressively higher pitched, culminating in a spectacular knack jump on my part.

"Yeah!" Dylan had said, nodding excitedly. I'd felt my terror mirrored by my dorm mates.

However, Dylan's enthusiasm meant we were going. End of story, good bye, sayonara, end of conversation. Period.

Which is why Friday the eighth of October found us sitting awkwardly in our room. Scor had been dressed as a pirate by Dylan. Al was supposed to be some swashbuckling fellow named Zorro, Dylan himself was some kind of Muggle character who carried a gun and a "licence to kill" (I'm still confused), which left me and Sam to our own devices. I'd heard Dom complaining about something she called the "heels brigade" and figured Dylan was our equivalent. I'm only too glad to have escaped.

About twenty minutes before eight (when the Masquerade was supposed to start), Fred showed up in our dormitory wearing a pair of yellow dress robes and a lion's mask.

"Dylan, the girls are in the process of coming down the stairs," he said, raising significant eyebrows in Scor's direction. Dylan nodded and as one they grabbed him by the shoulders and the elbows and frogmarched him out of the room.

"That poor, sorry bastard," I said.

"I think they're trying to set him and Rose up," Sam said. Al and I turned to stare at him. "What?"

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Al said. "And they're doing that well enough on their own."

"It's like everyone's pairing off," Sam said.

"Not everyone. Just Rose and Scor and Ly and James," I said.

"Which is why Dylan's been hanging out with us more, right?" Sam said.

"Yes," I said. The guy may be my best friend, but sometimes, you have to give him the full breakdown of what exactly is going on. Otherwise, he tends to stare at life with this blank expression that makes him seem like an idiot. I've been told I do this as well, but not to the same extent.

The door burst open. "You're not even in costume!" Dylan yelled, causing all three of us to jump about a foot in the air and drop everything we were holding. This meant my Transfiguration notebook ended up somewhere in the general melee of my bedclothes (never finding that again), Al dropped his trousers and Sam dropped what appeared to be half a ton of whirring devices into Dylan's bed. They quickly scuttled away and disappeared. I raised my eyebrow at him. He turned pink but said nothing.

"Is it really a costume thing? Or is it more of a 'dress nicely and put on a mask' thing?" I asked. Dylan sighed as though I were putting the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"Traditionally, it's a costume party, made by having the costume. But since you're all boring, it's more of a 'wear something nice' party," he said. "Come on. It's our first time getting invited to the Tower and you really want to go in-in that?"

I looked down at what I was wearing. Uniform pants and a black shirt.

"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" I asked.

"There's no pizazz!" Dylan insisted. He grabbed his wand. I backed away in horror.

"No sequins. None!" I said, suddenly panicked. He grinned evilly and there was a bang followed by a puff of smoke and then something was strangling me. I chocked and grabbed at my neck. I realised that I was now wearing a bow tie. In horror, I looked in the bathroom mirror. I was wearing a red and black bow tie (a very sparkly one), a waistcoat with all the suits of a deck of cards on it, and tails. Like, coattails. And a top hat with an oversized Queen of Hearts card coming out of it. I was also wearing a mask made out of two cards.

"What am I?" I asked. "The Gambler?"

"No, I was more thinking, 'random extra in the court of the Queen of Hearts'," Dylan said brightly.

"Like, Alice in Wonderland?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," Dylan said. He seemed much too pleased with himself. I reached into my pocket for my wand, only to find it replaced with a deck of cards.

"Where is my wand?" I asked. Dylan shrugged innocently. "Dylan, so help me Merlin, if you don't give me back my wand, I will personally make sure you never sleep in this school again." He looked somewhat terrified and handed me my wand back. I used it to pull off the hat, get rid of the card embellishments on the waistcoat, and turn the mask into a normal black mask.

"Fine," Dylan said grumpily. I glared at him. Sam panicked at that point. He doesn't do well when he panics.

"Don't change my clothes!" he shrieked, running out of the room and down the stairs.

"You've got that?" Dylan asked me.

"Yeah," I said, following him out. He'd just hit the common room when I caught up to him. He tripped into someone and sent them flying. It turned out to be James.

"Do I actually have the option of standing at some point in my life?" James yelled. The group around him laughed.

"Miss anything good?" I asked no one in particular.

"Rose and Scor pulled a James and Ly, James then proceeded to trip into the chair and fall on his arse, at which point he was trying to stand up, but then Sam came running in like the Devil was after him and now we're having this conversation," Roxie said. At least, I assume its Roxie. She was wearing a short red dress and a red eye mask with feathers coming off to either side, and strappy red torture devices that were probably some form of shoe. She looked great.

"Wow, Roxie," I said. "You look great."

"You sound surprised, Will," she said. How do you answer that? Do you say, "No, of course I'm not surprised, you're gorgeous" and reveal your true colours, or do you say, "Well yeah. It's not like you ever dress up" and get smacked?

"You just never dress up, is all," I finally decided.

"Fair enough," she said. Crisis averted. Thank Merlin.

And then I looked to see if Sam had gotten himself into trouble. He was staring slack jawed at Dom. Meaning he was about to be in trouble. Although, in his defence, she did look, well, hot. Even though she still looked pissed off, because, well, she's Dom.

"Sam knows he's drooling, right?" Lucy asked.

"I doubt it," I said. This should be a fun night.

"Welcome to the Tower," said a woman's voice when we got there. This was only strange because there was no one there. In fact, there was nothing there. Just some tapestry of some shmuck trying to teach trolls to do the ballet. Before any of us could comment that James and Fred had truly lost it and we were in the wrong place, two doors sprang into being in front of us. They pushed them open to welcome us into the Tower. The Tower is kind of a Hogwarts legend when you're a first year. Supposedly, it used to be a room that could become anything you wanted it to be, but it got destroyed in the Great War. It stayed destroyed until these three students got together and found it and somewhat fixed it. As all three were Gryffindor students, it was decided that the Tower was technically Gryffindor territory. However, it's also the party spot in Hogwarts. Everyone is welcome to the crazy parties. Well, everyone over third year, unless you've got an invitation. Or an in.

We happened to have both.

As one, we stepped over the threshold into madness. And when I say madness, I mean, ball gowns, costumes, skimpy dresses, loud music, hazy atmosphere and some form of nineteenth century decoration theme that seemed to fit with the masquerade theme. There were even balconies, with the occasional person swinging between them on what looked like gigantic curtain ties. Usually, these people would land on the balconies with a graceful thud and be applauded. However, as we watched, one swung into the banister of a balcony and fell onto the group of people just below him. He was caught by raised hands and the small area turned into the equivalent of a mosh pit from a rock concert, wherein he was crowd surfed to the centre of the room and then dropped.

How the teachers don't know about this place is beyond me.

"Your invitations, second years?" asked a voice from just inside the door, which had now swung closed. The guy was wearing an open old fashioned shirt and looked like he'd just stepped out of a period film about Casanova or something. He even had the crazy leather Venetian mask. He was also carrying a goblet and I believe he may have been –

"I think he's shitfaced," Roxie said.

"Yeah," I agreed. James and Fred had disappeared into the crowd, Ly with them. Dylan glanced around surreptitiously and shoved Rose and Scor into each other and then into the dancing crowd. They promptly disappeared. That left me, Sam, Al, Dylan, Roxie, Dom and Lucy to explain our presence. This would've been so much easier if Ly were here.

"Well, I don't need an invitation," Roxie said to the guy. He looked confused. She pointed above the door. Three names were carved into the stone: Teddy Lupin, Victoire Weasley, Jake Wood. The three legendary students who had restored the place. "I'm a Weasley." The guy's eyes went unfocused for a second.

"So am I," Lucy said.

"Me too," Al said. Dom said nothing, and was instead staring at the guy like he'd gone insane.

"What about you?" he asked, turning to Dylan.

"I'm here by invitation of a Weasley," he said. "Automatic immunity." The guy nodded and Dylan also disappeared into the crowd.

"So am I," I said. "Invitation by Weasley, that is." The guy looked disappointed, like he wanted to throw someone out.

"I am too," Sam said.

"I was going to have fun throwing you out, too!" the guy said. He heaved a sigh like the world was on his shoulders. "It'd make it better if yon pretty lady would grant me the honour of a dance," he said, offering Dom his hand. She looked from the hand back to its owner a couple of times and then stormed across the five foot gap between them and pulled off his mask. A sixth year that I'm pretty sure is Gryffindor Quidditch captain was revealed. She pulled her mask off as well. His eyes went wide.

"Dom?" he asked.

"Liam," she said. He seemed to be sober instantly.

"Monday would have been very awkward, had you said yes," he said.

"Which I wouldn't have," she said. He shook his head as though to clear it of bizarre thoughts.

"I'm gonna go wash my brain out with billywig juice. Excuse me," he said, before pulling his mask back on and disappearing.

"What was that about?" Al asked.

"That was my Quidditch captain, being drunk and hitting on me," Dom said. "He's also my partner, as we're both Beaters. We have practise on Monday that would've been made very awkward by us dancing together."

"Still think you should've," Roxie said.

"No one asked you, Rox," Dom said. "And if you think he's so smashing, you can go dance with him."

"Let's see what's wrong with that…first, I dunno, I'm twelve, he's sixteen," she said. "Whereas, you're thirteen." Dom fixed her a glare that would've killed someone lesser, like, I dunno, me.

"So!" I said, more to break the tension than anything. "What do you guys want to do? We could always…hide in one of the balconies until we can logically escape."

"We could get piss raging drunk," Roxie said. I so like my plan better.

"And end up like Liam? No thanks," Dom said.

"We could dance," Roxie said.

"Okay," Dom said, shrugging. "Come on, Sammy." Sam gave me his panicked look. That's not going to be good. But it was too late to take action as she'd already dragged him off into the dance floor.

"I think I like Will's plan," Lucy said. "Al?"

"I'm with you," he said.

"Yeah, I think I am too!" I said, making to follow them. Someone caught me by the suspender strap I didn't know I was wearing.

"Oh no you don't," Roxie said. "I'm not dancing by myself." Well, hell.

I was then dragged into the dance floor. A few feet away, I could see Rose and Scor "dancing" together. For dancing, read "awkward shuffling with much stepping on of feet and kicking of shins."

A few feet away from them, Ly and James were dancing exuberantly to the extent a circle had formed around them to watch. They were really quite good. I couldn't see Dom and Sam anywhere, so I couldn't contrive a way to save his arse. Knowing him, he'd end up babbling something about liking her and she'd never talk to him again.

"I worry about Sam," I said.

"Don't we all," Roxie said, taking my hand. I swallowed nervously, probably looking as panicked as Sam had. She then placed my other hand on her waist. I willed myself not to start sweating up a storm and then pass out. She put her other hand on my shoulder and we swayed awkwardly to the fast beat. Of course, the moment we did, the song was over and a slow song started playing. I turned pink and went to run away, but she didn't let go. Now we were swaying in time to the slow music.

I think I may like Roxie.

OOooOOooOOooOO

"And then she put her hand on my arm," Sam related, seeming in shock. "But then that sixth year, Liam Wood, came back and offered us both drinks. And she took one, but I didn't. At first. But then I did. And that Frank guy from James and Fred's dorm came by and dropped something in my drink. Then the room was underwater, and I had to swim to the door, and when I looked back, Dom was still with that Liam Wood guy. I didn't see her after I got outside of the room, but that's because I was here then. I still don't know how I swam all that way. How did you swim all that way?"

"You're not underwater, Sam," Al repeated for the eighth time. This is the eighth retelling of this story we've heard since we all got back to the dorm. Dylan passed out almost immediately after a few quick bursts of hysteric laughter. Scor had a stupid grin on his face that wouldn't go away. Al looked incredibly Zen, probably due to the fact he'd been slipped Firewhiskey by Lucy, who seemed to have been trying to see what the effect would be if she slipped him small amounts over the course of the night. He was sitting up in bed and staring stonily at the opposite wall as though he was having a staring match with it. He would occasionally point out reality to all of us. Sam, as has been previously mentioned, seemed to be both drunk and drugged, while I think I may have been wearing a similar facial expression to Scor, which disturbed me more than the rest of them combined.

"Scor, staring at your bed curtains will not make them into Rose," Al said. "Will, the same goes for you, except with Roxie."

"I don't want my bed curtains to turn into Roxie!" I insisted.

"Sure you don't," he said.

"I don't!" I insisted. Well, not really, anyways. If they did, it would just be awkward. That would never come out of my head and forever, I'd just be lying in bed, freaking out because Roxie could be watching me. Great. It's not going to go away now.

"What about you, Scor?" I asked. "You get spiked or drugged?"

"Nope," he said, with much too much enthusiasm for life. The whole idea of Roxie turning into my bed curtains and watching me sleep had me freaked out now.

"Just danced with Rose?" I asked.

"Yep," he said.

"But…" Sam said. "Why's the water draining? Where's it going?"

"Sam," I said. "You've been drugged. You are not underwater, you never were. Except perhaps when you were a small child and went swimming with your family."

"But…it's all gone," he said.

"Good," I said.

"Oh, god, my head," he said, seeming to fall backward into a ball. He didn't move again, but I heard him snoring, so I figured he was okay.

"What about you, Al? Ready for your first hangover?" I asked. There was no response. I looked over. Al had fallen from his sitting straight up position into a perfectly prone plank of a person on his bed. He also snored. "Scor?" I asked. No reply. So it's just me. Fun.

Sleepily, I pulled off my mask and kicked off my shoes before crawling into my bed and promptly passing out.

OOooOOooOOooOO

"You're going to miss breakfast!" shouted a shrill voice. There were three cries of pain from around the room. I blinked sleepily. But I didn't comprehend what I was seeing. There was an angel in the doorway. She was a brunette with her hair blowing behind her, sunlight framing her from behind and she was stunningly beautiful. She crossed the room until she was staring me in the face. She had blue eyes. And tan skin. She looked like Roxie.

Which, the rational part of my brain said, is because she is Roxie.

"Will," she said, patting me lightly in the face. I twitched awake.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

"Because you're going to miss breakfast," she said. "All of you are."

"Why aren't James and Fred waking us up like they normally do?" I asked, climbing out of bed.

"Erm…they're next on the list for waking," Roxie said.

"Why are you the one waking us up?" I asked. Normally, so far as I understand the girls I'm friends with, Ly would be the one they'd send to wake us up. At the Malfoys' house, their house elf wakes us up, but sometimes Ly does it just for fun.

"Because Lucy's out of commission, Rose is already down at the Great Hall saving the lot of us seats, Ly is hopefully with James and Fred and we don't exactly know where Dom is," she summed up. "Which leaves me."

"Oh," I said intelligently. I dug in my trunk and found a pair of jeans that were only mildly covered in magical mulch (the stuff that accumulates at the bottom of Hogwarts trunks) and a tee shirt. "I'll be right back," I said, ducking into the bathroom to change. I peeled off the suspenders and then pulled off the shirt before pulling on my tee shirt. I'd just stepped out of my trousers to pull on my jeans when the bathroom door burst open. Dylan barrelled past me and went straight to the toilet to throw up. I quickly pulled on my jeans and left the room. Scor was sitting up in bed looking discombobulated, but not so much as Sam, who looked genuinely disturbed by life. Well, more so than usual that is. Al was still stony faced and glaring at the wall again.

"Come on boys," Roxie said, clapping like we were puppy dogs. "Let's go wake up James." I stepped into shoes that were probably mine and followed her down the stairs to James and Fred's dorm. Roxie pushed open the door. Fred was lying sideways across his bed. I only knew it was him because I could see his head coming out from between the curtains. Roxie smiled and danced across the room to her brother, who she promptly smacked in the face. He screamed bloody murder and sat bolt upright. He got a face full of curtain in the process.

"Is that normal?" I asked, genuinely concerned.

"Eh. Normal enough," Roxie said. "This is my brother we're talking about. But, yes, that has always been his reaction to my waking him up."

"Fair enough," I said. She walked over to another bed. She pulled back the curtains. Ly was sleeping there quite peacefully. No James in sight.

"Lyra," Roxie said. Ly woke up immediately.

"This is not the girls' dormitory," she said.

"No," Roxie said. "Figured you might want these," she added, throwing a pair of jeans, a zip up sweatshirt and a shirt of some form in her direction.

"How do you know what she'd want to wear?" I asked, being reminded eerily of Dylan. "You just…go through each other's clothes?"

"No," she said. "Dom, Ly and I don't actually know whose clothes are whose, so we all share." I stared at her in confusion. "It's a girl thing."

"Oh," I said. "So, where's James?" She seemed to consider for a moment, before walking back to her brother's bed and pulling open the curtains. In addition to Fred, who was now sitting up and rubbing his eyes, was James, curled in a ball on top of the pillows.

"They did this all the time when they were kids. Like, even in their cribs apparently. James would always get the pillows and Fred would end up with his head and feet hanging off the sides," Roxie said. "You will both miss breakfast if you don't get up now," she said to the two. They both looked terrified and were out of bed instantly. Ly joined us shortly.

"Anyone heard from Dom?" Roxie asked them as the five of us headed down for breakfast.

"No," Ly said. "Last I saw, she was dancing with Liam."

"According to Sam she was also drinking," I said. "But, Sam also thought he was underwater, so he's probably not the most reliable of sources."

By this point, we'd reached the Great Hall. Rose waved us down from halfway down the Gryffindor table. We went to join her. I noticed as we walked along that at least half the house looked pasty, tired and slightly hung over.

Rose looked chipper as usual, as did Scorpius, although they kept glancing at each other and then blushing furiously. Sam had his head in his bowl of cereal, Dylan was asleep on Al's shoulder. Al was trying to eat his toast without disturbing Dylan's sleep. Dom was sitting next to Rose staring deeply into a mug of black coffee while Lucy sat next to them looking green. It appeared that in addition to slipping Al alcohol, she'd been drinking some herself. Ly sat down next to Rose and helped herself to her brother's breakfast as he was too busy avoiding making eye contact with Rose to notice. James sat down on her other side and also tucked into Scor's breakfast, as, apparently to distract himself from Rose, he'd piled on about eight slices of toast, a Matterhorn of scrambled eggs, a large number of kippers, and three separate bowls of cereal. Roxie sat next to Lucy and I sat next to her, leaving Fred to sit with the boys who were also nursing hangovers. Lucy and Dom seemed to be the only two on our side who had drunken anything. Scor was the only one on his side who hadn't.

About twenty minutes into the breakfast, Scor stood up.

"I've got to go study for Herbology. Rose, would you like to come with me?" he asked. Rose turned red and mumbled something that sounded like 'sure.' They stood up and walked away.

"James, do you want to help me with my Potions homework?" Ly asked.

"Yes, yes I do," he said.

"Great, let's go," she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him out of the hall. Fred watched them go, looking bitter.

"Anyone need help with Transfiguration?" I asked.

"Yeah," Roxie said.

"Me too," Dylan said, speaking for the first time.

"Probably," Al said.

"Definitely," Lucy said.

"Anyone have some sugar mice?" Dom asked.

"Yeah," Lucy said, pulling a box of them out of her pocket. She handed it to Dom. Dom pulled one out by its tail and dropped it into her coffee. It dissolved quickly, coming to a fast end. Dom stirred the mug and took a drink.

"That's better," she said. "And yes, I need help with Transfiguration."

"What about Charms?" I asked. There was a sucking noise as Sam sat up and pulled his face out of his bowl.

"I'll help with Charms," he said.

"That's the idea," I said.

"Oh, then, yeah. Who wants help with Charms?" he asked.

"Depends," Dylan muttered. "Are you going to Charm a bunch of bowtruckles to bite me every time I try to fall asleep?"

"No," Sam said. "Why would I do that?"

"Well, you never know, so I was just checking," he said. Sam looked so pathetically confused. I glanced sideways at Roxie. We made eye contact, after which I'm positive I turned pink.

Yeah this is going to go great, this whole liking Roxie thing.

Just peachy.

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