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Chapter Ten: Nightmares From the Past
Nessie spotted Scorpius looking depressed, he must have gotten her letter. Her heart ached in unfamiliar ways to see his face with that leech Alexia draped all over him.
Then she saw James looking towards the Ravenclaw table the way that Ted used to. "Cathy, James is staring at you." She told Cathy. She started to giggle and blush.
James started laughing and spilled his drink down his face. The girls around Cathy and Nessie started laughing at him.
"Shush!" Cathy scolded them.
Then Nessie heard Rose stomp into the great hall, actually she didn't need the aid of her vampiric hearing, everyone turned to see her come in.
"Look at this!" She fumed as she laid the Daily Profit down on the table.
"Reading more gossip Rose?" Hugo asked.
"I can't believe it! She's done it again! 'Miss Weasley, a plain but ambitious girl seems to be developing a taste for famous wizards.'"
"What?" James turned the paper so that he could read it. "'Her latest prey, sources report is none other than the Bulgarian bonbon Royce Van King the Second. No word yet on how James Potter's taking this latest emotional blow.' I'm your cousin for goodness sakes!" James gagged on his breakfast. "That's disgusting, just because you came to give me words of encouragement and to hug me one last time!"
"Someone has to stop those harpies." Hugo muttered. "Oh no!" Hugo gulped as four owls brought in a parcel and headed straight for him.
Nessie's interests peaked.
"Looks like its Yule ball time again!" Rose and Lily sang together.
"NOOOOOOOOOO!" Hugo yelled as the owl's dropped the box on top of him.
James laughed as he opened the box. His laughter was killed when he pulled out his dress robes.
"Seriously? Mom couldn't find anything better for us to wear!" James whined.
"It's all about reliving our parent's experiences." Rose said. "I mean dad had some pretty good memories in those dress robes."
"But they are still awful." Lily agreed with the boys.
Nessie giggled to herself as she walked to her first class.
"Why do they have to travel in packs?" She heard one boy complain about the girls. "How are you supposed to get one on their own to ask them?"
She had gotten several requests by some brave boys who would approach her while she was standing with Miranda, Cathy, and some of Cathy's friends. Most just smiled goofily and ran away.
The girls from Beauxbatons wouldn't even look in any boy's direction. They traveled in larger packs than the ones the Hogwarts girls made. The shoe seemed to be on the other foot with Royce Van King. He had a pack of girls following after him.
Royce called on Rose every night. She tried to ignore him as best as she could, but she had to admit it was flattering. No one had ever done that for her, she was touched.
. . .
Al, Seth and Harry, playing Eric, were sitting at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall. The potion's professor was running a mid-term study session that was mandatory for all grades. Everyone thought he was just sadistic.
"This is mad." Al complained quietly. "At this rate, Hugo and I will be the only ones in our year without a date. Well us and that new guy Seth."
"It might interest you to know that he already has a date, that new girl from Ravenclaw. Katie Marshal." Lily pointed to Miranda where she was sitting at the Ravenclaw table.
"Now I'm really depressed." Al put his head on the table.
Harry, feeling his son's pain, wrote something on a piece of paper and passed it over to him. Al read it to himself: Get a move on or all the good ones will have gone.
"Who are you going with then?"
Harry got a wicked idea. He balled up a piece of paper, threw it, and hit a girl from the Gryffindor quidditch team.
"Oi!" he whispered
"What?" She asked, startled.
"Do you wanna go to the ball with me?" He mouthed, dancing a little in his seat, and pointing to himself. He had seen George doing it back when he was in school.
"To the ball?" She asked in an excited tone. "Yeah, all right."
Harry winked at Al and went back to his work.
"Hey Rose." Al took a chance. "You're a girl."
"Oh don't even think about it."
"Come with one of us?" Al and Hugo started to dance like Harry had and made said man laugh. The Potions Professor came over to them then and scolded them for being too loud.
"Come on. It's one thing for a bloke to show up alone. For a girl, it's just sad." Al commented as the professor walked away.
Rose turned red in the face and got mad.
"I won't be going alone, because, believe it or not, someone's already asked me!" She whispered angrily. She went up to the professor and handed him her essay. "And I said yes!" She told Al as she grabbed her books and walked away.
Al gulped; he had never seen Rose like this. "She's lying, right?" He asked Hugo
"If you say so." Hugo pushed his glasses further up his nose.
"Look, we've just gotta grit our teeth and do it." Al said.
"Yea, tonight when we get back to the common room, we'll both have partners. Agreed?" Hugo offered his cousin his hand.
They could hear the ominous cracking of the Professors knuckles as he turned their heads towards their work and shoved them down. He walked away with a satisfied expression.
Seth noticed Harry's bemused expression he looked at Harry questioningly.
"Oh you'll see." His green eyes were literally glowing as he propped his head on his hands. Just then some girls brought Hugo in to the room, Lily was with them. Rose, James, and Al stopped what they were doing to watch the parade.
"It's alright." One of them soothed him.
"It's okay, Hugo. It doesn't matter." Lily told her cousin.
"What's the matter with you?" Al wondered aloud.
"He just asked a Beauxbatons girl out." Lily told her brother.
"What?" Rose asked.
"What did she say?" Al asked.
"No, of course!" Rose said like it was obvious, which it was.
Hugo started shaking his head no.
"She said yes?" Rose gasped and tried to cover her laughing.
"Don't be silly." Hugo rolled his eyes. "There they were, walking past me. You know how I like it when they walk." He looked at Al sympathetically. "I couldn't help it. It just sort of slipped out."
"Actually, he sort of screamed at her. It was a bit frightening." Lily remarked.
"And what did you do then?" James asked.
"What else?" Hugo threw up his hands. "I ran for it. She's never gonna forgive me, ever."
All the girls started to fawn over Hugo. Harry thought he looked like Hugh Heffner at his Christmas party. Wouldn't Ron be proud?
"James, couldn't you help us out? I mean you got a girlfriend, she has to have friends, a sister, cousins, anyone at this point."
"Actually, I think Cat has some friends who haven't been asked. I'll ask her about it when I see her later."
Seth balled up his fists. Harry calmed him down.
"Chill out, he's not talking about Miranda or Ness."
Seth breathed a sigh of relief and went back to watching the spectacle of Hugo Heffner.
Then next chapter is the Yule ball, hope you'll stick around for it! :D