The first thing I learned about my outing for the day was that I would need to follow my brother under the invisibility cloak. The second thing I learned was that this was because Dumbledore had no idea I was leaving the castle. My professors had received a note from my head of house saying I would be making up tests with her all day and therefore she would need me to miss my classes. As far as Dumbledore knew I was sitting in my classes doing my work like normal. At least that's what they thought. Anyone who truly knows Dumbledore, knows he has a knowledge of everything that goes on the Hogwarts grounds.

I was told to grab on to Reese's arm and we apparated. I had closed my eyes for the travel, not being to fond of apparation. When I opened them we were in London.

"Surprise!" he said as I smiled and hugged him.

"Professor Mcgonagal actually approved you bringing me to London?" I asked

"I might have told her we were going on a small shopping trip and left out the part that it wasn't in Hogsmede. She just assumed…" He smiled

"I've never loved you more than I do right now." I told him. I caught site of myself in the reflection of a shop window. I had on a green peacoat with black tights and black boots, my hair wasn't too messy today, it actually looked nice with my bangs framing my face. I looked like a normal happy teenage girl playing hooky from school with her big brother. I had never felt so normal. It was the weirdest feeling in the world.

We walked around and shopped for a while. Reese insisted on buying me everything that I tried on. It wasn't until about two hours into the day that I realized it wasn't just about a shopping spree.

Reese looked at his watch. "We're going to be late come on." he said picking up the pace as we walked through crowds of people.

"Late for what?" I asked him.

No answer.

"Late for what?" I asked him again. It wasn't long before we stopped in front of a fancy dress boutique store thing. I turned to my brother. "What are we getting here?" I questioned.

He opened the door and led me in. A blonde girl jumped at Reese throwing her arms around him. She turned to me and gave me a hug as well. "Hallie Evans! I have been waiting so long to meet you! I'm Alia." she told me, an Australian accent present in her voice.

"Surprise!" Reese said enthusiastically. "Today you're going to get your bridesmaid's dress, and you are getting a dress for the ball." He informed me.

"We're going to get married the day after Christmas, so you'll be home from school!" Alia said a little too excitedly.

"I will?" I turned to Reese.

"I've got it taken care of." He told me and I rolled my eyes. He had said that about today too but what we were doing was still technically a super secret class skipping day of contraband.

Alia pulled my arm. "Come on, the dress I picked out is going to look perfect on you!"

Sure enough the dress was perfect. The dark green made my eyes look crazy bright. It had long sleeves but cut off at my knees. The dress cut straight under my collar bones in a flat line. "I love it." I told Alia and she smiled so bright the room lit up.

"It looks amazing on you." She paused to smile. "Now take it off and go pick out your own dress." she told me.

Not knowing a lot about formal dresses and what looked good on me I picked out dresses of every shape, color and cut you could think of. I wanted the dress to be prefect for me, but Cedric as well.

After trying on every dress I had picked out, I felt defeated. Alia even tried to help but for some reason we couldn't find the perfect dress.

"How about this one?" Reese came forward with a champagne dress with gold flowers sewn onto the tool of the dress. After pulling it over my head and fixing the straps on my shoulders, Alia tied the long bow in the back. I walked out to show Reese and looked in the mirror. I covered my mouth shocked at the huge grin dominating my face.

"It's beautiful." Alia said.

"How do you feel?" Reese asked me.

"I feel stupid…" I told him looking down.

"Why?" he questioned.

"Because I feel like a princess." I explained

Alia awed and grabbed my hand and Reese smiled. I think maybe I was feeling what most girls felt like trying on their very own special dress for the first time.

Once we had purchased the dresses we stopped at a few more stores, as we were making our way to lunch I recognized a familiar face. I turned around and faced Reese. "Dudley is over there." I whispered to him, pointing across the street at our round faced cousin with a group of other boys.

He turned me around and put his arm around my shoulder. "He can't hear you and he can't see you." we kept walking but it wasn't long before Dudley crossed the street and practically ran into us.

"What are you doing here?" He remarked looking back and forth between Reese and I.

"I could be asking the same thing." Reese responded.

Dudley narrowed his eyes at him. "I am on a school trip, learning about the historical importance of London. Last time I checked, you weren't allowed to see each other." he pointed at us.

I stepped in front of my brother "Last time I checked, Reese not being able to be in your house does not mean he can't see me. You're such a prat Dudley, leave us alone." I started walking away.

"Father is really not going to like that you left school." Dudley stated.

"Why would Vernon care what Hallie does in her free time?" Reese questioned daring Dudley to explain.

I turned around and glared at my stupid evil cousin. "He wouldn't care. Dudley is just trying to get attention like that time he brought back Caroline Simmons to the house and she-" Dudley cut me off

"Never mind." he said knowing he had lost this battle. "I don't care about you anyway. I couldn't even hate you if I tried." He and his friends turned and walked away.

"Well he's a charmer." Alia remarked. "Who was he again?" She questioned

"Our cousin." Reese and I said at the same time. Looking at Alia's face, Reese had told her at least some of what went on at the Dursley residence.

At lunch she seemed even more curious, however it begum with my questioning her. "So, how did you two meet anyway. Alia you're clearly not local." I asked.

"Right well he was in Sydney for some foreign magic policy stuff-" Alia began

"and her father was in charge of overseeing my work." Reese continued

"Anyway, we met and clicked." Alia this time

"I proposed but I had to go back to work at home." Reese explained

"I didn't have a job and I knew how important you are to Reese," Alia continued

"So we moved here, her immediate family's traveled in for the wedding." Reese finished. They were so cute it was almost disgusting. Minus the almost. At that moment I was glad no one knew about Cedric and I because I was worried we might seem that grossly in love.

"So…" Alia began hesitantly "Reese has been really vague on your family history. He said he didn't want to tell me anything that might make you uncomfortable." She explained

I looked at my brother and he nodded "Well what do you already know?" I asked her.

"I know that you're mother and father have both passed," She started. "and I know Reese has a different father who is alive and there's some really complicated stuff there and with your custody but he said anything else was what you wanted to tell me."

I nodded "You're right it is kind of complicated." I told her and then continued on. "So our parent's last year at school, my parents were fighting a lot and ended up breaking up. Long story short mom's all heart broken and runs to her best friend-"

"My father" Reese interjected.

I continued, "so our mom realizes that she's made a huge mistake. She didn't want to lead Reese's dad on because she didn't feel the same way as him. Only she's already made baby Reese but doesn't know it yet. So she gets back together with my dad because they make up and are all lovey dovey. They discover that she's pregnant and my father, who has a well known reputation in small circles of the local wizarding community, volunteers to tell everyone the baby is his. He agrees he won't actually be the father but he knows what it would mean for our mom if she has a baby with someone she wasn't in a relationship with. He then marries her and ten years later I'm born. A year after that our parents died in some sort of, "I pause trying to think of a believable excuse, "boating accident." I decide and then continue. "Reese's father works at Hogwarts r so we both got sent to live with our horrid family who I'm sure you've heard a lot about. Reese gets to spend his years at school though so he was only with me in the summers. I had grown up with a small knowledge of magic because of that but we were never allowed to talk about it in the house. However as soon as Reese became of age they threw him out and that brings us to six years later when my brother has finally decided to take a role in my life again." I summed up for her.

"You do realize how hard it is to get to you right? You are always physically next to someone who doesn't want me near you." He defended. "I've just decided I don't care anymore." He explained and I laughed so he knew I understood, even though I was still a little hurt.

We chatted an hour after our food was gone but by the time lunch was over it was time for me to go back to school.

Reese brought us to the gates and we walked on to the grounds this time without an invisibility cloak, getting caught coming in wasn't nearly as risky. However it wouldn't have made a difference because our journey to lug all the many shopping bags we had acquired, to the common room was intercepted by Professor Mcgonagal.

"Professor Dumbledore would like to see you both in his office." She told us dejectedly. She offered to have a house elf take my things to Hermione's room and Professor Mcgonagal would pull her out of class to explain.

We made our way up to Dumbledore's office and to my surprise outside his door was Snape waiting patiently.

"What am I? Thirteen? He needs to see me with my father there?" Reese complained.

Snape placed a hand on his shoulder, maybe as an act of sympathy? "Just bare through it and it'll be over before you know it." He offered. He turned to me. "He wants to see just us first he told me.

I rolled my eyes. "Fine. I'll be right here." I plopped myself down on the floor and they entered the office.