Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter world (much to my dismay), hence writing on a fanfiction site.

Chapter Eleven

Somehow, without even noticing, a whole month had flashed by. October had not been particularly notable. Remus had tried to explain to me that Dumbledore would like to talk to me again, but since I still couldn't bring myself to explain why I couldn't bear to face him again, Remus didn't really understand the full scope of it all. He didn't understand why I refused to concede.

Ever since my second year he clearly hadn't had anything to say to me when I needed it. So now because Harry has a dream he decides that this is a good enough time to open up to me? So now he can show me that he feels bad for potentially being the second most deceiving man of my entire life? No thanks. Too late. The past can't be undone and it can't be buried. I would know.

Things got a little harder between Remus and I, seeing as how we really didn't seem to want to talk about the same things. I hadn't really gone out of my way to see him lately, and I'll be the first to admit that his absence in my day was immensely noticeable. I hadn't really realized how different my year had become having someone to talk to compared to my previous years. I couldn't stop thinking about him. I knew I was just being stubborn, but I knew that eventually he would manage to get me to agree to see Dumbledore, and that was exactly what I didn't want to happen. I didn't owe the old man anything, as far as I saw it. I was still bitter. But I missed Remus. He was the only person I really could trust and I was pushing him farther and farther away from me.

I did fortunately have other things to occupy my thinking time. Those last few weeks, Hermione was an absolute mess. Ron, the observant boy that he is, found out that Hermione was going to the stupid dance with someone else (big surprise, Ron). So instead of talking to her like a reasonable man― which I am fully aware that my brother is not―he decided to react in the most counterproductive way he could manage and ignored her.

Not only this, but my idiot brother thought that he should pay her back by taking Arlene, the Ravenclaw prefect as his date. Whenever Hermione tried to come by and talk to Harry or him, he would go out of his way to loudly talk about just how amazing this girl was and to add insult to injury; he even once said that he'd never met such a smart girl before. I couldn't believe how insensitive he was being, even for my brother, so I smacked him upside the head and had to run after Hermione when she left through the portrait hole in tears. Things hadn't improved much since then. As much as I hated this obscene teenage drama, it occupied my head, leaving no room for the other things that hurt me and I hated.

On the night of, Hermione and I spent nearly two hours getting ready together. She'd picked Rapunzel, whom I'd never heard of until she showed me a book of muggle fairy tales. To complete the look, we searched for hours to find the perfect hair growth charm that would last only a few hours. I grew hers nearly down to the floor, and then spent a great deal of time braiding it. It took me ages to convince her to dye it the appropriate golden-blond, but in the end I won out, especially since it was only for the evening. She wore a gorgeous pink medieval dress and a tinted pink train that came out from underneath a golden tiara. I went very soft on her makeup to keep it fresh and innocent, as Rapunzel should be.

We'd found her dress weeks ago on our trip to Hogsmede. During this time, I'd accidentally let slip to Hermione what I really wanted to be for Halloween, and she completely jumped on the idea, refusing to let it drop. I've got to give her due credit, because that day she managed to find the singular most perfect dress hidden under heaps of clothes at the back. Even when I said I couldn't afford it, she refused to listen. She got her hands on all my spending money, and before I could appropriately protest, she bought both our dresses even though I hadn't enough for mine.

I kept trying to tell her that she hadn't needed to buy it for me and that I could go as something else and that I would pay her back as soon as possible, but after a week or two, she just told me to shut up and take the damn dress. Fair enough, I guess.

At the end of the two hours, we were ready to go meet our dates. Yes, indeed I'd gotten myself a date. It only happened a week before when I'd been sitting in the common room studying for one subject or another when a conversation near me attracted my attention.

"Um, Parvati, could I speak to you for a moment?"

"Neville, if you're thinking of asking her to go with you, don't be ridiculous. She's obviously got someone else to go with."

"Lavender―

"What, Pav?" Merlin, she drove me mental.

"Shut up for a moment," I was mentally cheering Parvati on, although she may call Lavender her best-friend, she certainly had no problem telling her off when she was being a bit of an idiot. "I'm really sorry, Neville. It's just that I promised Seamus I'd go with him last week," she did generally feel sorry, the sincerity in her voice was impossible to feign. I did feel very bad though because I'd known how much nerve Neville had put into working up the courage to ask her. He turned around very forlorn because he'd had a large crush on her for the past year.

"Hey, Nev?" he looked around, startled as if he hadn't known anyone else was around. I turned my attention away from the giggling Lavender, and focused my attention entirely on him.

"Oh, hi, Ginny." He was fully distraught and my heart completely went out to him.

"I was just wondering, you see, 'cause I've got no one to take me on Halloween, but I was hoping that maybe you wouldn't mind going with me?" I know it seemed like I was just asking him because I felt bad, but I really honestly wanted him to say yes. We went to the Yule Ball a couple years ago, and despite a few sore toes here and there, I had a great time.

He seemed to contemplate it for a moment and I actually began to think he'd say no. "Yeah, okay." He smiled at me and I beamed back.

"So, do you know what you're going as?" I'd been generally curious, hopefully our costumes would sort of go together.

His face fell and he sort of grimaced. "I've actually no idea, have you any?" my grin turned mischievous.

"Oh, I've just the thing! You're coming to Hogsmede with me this weekend," he seemed a tad suspicious, but went along anyways.

When I met Neville in front of the Great Hall, my face couldn't contain my smile. He was dressed head to toe in gleaming armour, with a long sword belted at his side. On the front of his chest plate a crimson dragon was painted and a bronze crown lay on top of his head. For someone so unsure of himself, I must say, he looked the part.

Hermione and I separated as she went to find her own knight in shining armour, Sir Stephen.

"Ginny! You look absolutely perfect!" Even though we were just going as friends, Neville made sure to treat me as a proper date. I actually felt on top of the world. We decided to start by getting drinks because it would be way crowded later. We actually spent a while socializing with the other houses and checking out everyone's costumes, but once we found we'd drank as much as we could, we headed out for the main floor.

We danced through the first few quick songs and I could tell he was having a good time. In fact, I was having a good time too, a great one actually. For some reason, everything seemed a whole lot less serious and dismal. We laughed a lot, and didn't care if we danced like idiots when songs we knew came on. It was a lot of fun to be there as friends and I absolutely refused to let him sit down and wishfully stare at Seamus and Parvati during the slower ones. I was impressed at how much he'd improved on the dance floor.

After nearly an hour of non-stop dance, we finally agreed to have a breather. I was feeling a bit lightheaded and weirdly giddy. Neville headed off to get more drinks and told me to find a table and rest my feet. Lucky for me, I spotted Hermione standing by herself off to the side.

"There you are!" she exclaimed merrily as I approached. I hadn't seen her that happy in quite a while.

"How's everything going?" I asked quietly as possible, thought I may have failed because I was having too much fun to whisper. I gave a quick scan around to find her date. I knew she'd been terribly nervous about the whole thing for the past few weeks, almost to the point of saying she wasn't going to go.

"Absolutely fantastic! That boy sure can dance. He's just gone to get drinks and told me to find us a table," she explained, winking slightly, very much out of character. Much more open about having a good time. Even in the dark it was easy to see just how flushed she was. She was practically glowing with excitement.

"Yeah? That's where Neville went as well." I looked around the hall, wondering if I should chance it, "You haven't seen Ron, have you?"

"Oh no, he's off somewhere with what's-her-face," then she waved me off. I could tell she was on a complete high by her unusual lack of reaction. I took that as a very good sign. "Oh, here he comes!" at first I thought she meant Ron, but I could tell by her smile it must have been Stephen. I turned around and sure enough, he was carrying two drinks, beaming, even when he saw me with his date, he was still lit up like a light bulb. He made it to the table and sat down in the chair right on her other side.

"Hey, Ginny!" he greeted with one hundred percent geniality. He slid her drink over to Hermione and started up a conversation about the decorations. He was very good at maintaining equal conversation, always including me. I gave him some major brownie points as Hermione had had enough of over-possessive boys; I should know.

They finished their drinks and just as they were leaving one of Stephen's friends who looked like an Egyptian pharaoh came up to the table with a drink of his own. He gave Stephen a light punch to the shoulder and laughed. "Hey, guess what I just heard!"

"What?" judging by how excited his friend was, we were all quite interested to hear.

"The Slytherin's spiked the punch! Right at the start too, so everyone's been drinking it! Fantastic." he didn't even wait for a response as he wandered off into another crowed of people laughing. Clearly, he'd had more than enough. That explains the light headedness… and giddiness.

"What!" we both turned to see an appalled Hermione. "I'm Head Girl! I'm going to be in so much trouble for letting this happen! What are they going to think of me? I'm going to kill them! They'll probably―"

"Hermione, how many have you had?" I cut in, holding up her empty glass in front of her face, too amused for my own good.

"Too many!" was her only reply as she groaned and hid her face in her hands.

"Oh come one, no harm no foul!" Stephen tried to add in diplomatically, but failed entirely at keeping a straight face.

"No harm?" Hermione burst out, "what about the first years?" Fair point. But before Stephen or I had a chance to input anything else, the girl completely flipped out. It started as a tiny titter, but before either of us knew what was happening she was snorting with laughter. "Oh Merlin, there's going to be drunken first years! All running about," she could barely breathe. After a few longer moments, she wiped the tears from her eyes and Stephen asked her if she'd like to dance.

After they left, I could still see Hermione giggling as she got onto the dance floor, and Stephen holding on to her quite tightly, just barely suppressing his own hysteric. After a few moments of trying to assess my own level of intoxication, I realized that, having never been drunk before, I had no idea. But deciding that since my smile was so big thinking about it, I probably didn't need the drink Neville was fetching. Realizing then that Neville had been taking quite longer than necessary, I decided to go in search of him. I figured that he might have lost tract of me.

As I made for the drink table where I knew he'd been heading, I began to notice more people looking a little off balanced, and others far more merry than they ordinarily would be and all I could do was laugh. For once in my life, I had to hand it to the Slytherins.

Sure enough, I spotted Neville at the table, our drinks in his hand. I almost called out to him, but I stopped myself when I saw that he was speaking with someone else. It wasn't difficult to see that he was immersed in a conversation with Parvati (okay, it could have been Padma too, but I really doubted it). She was dressed in these immense blue pants and very, very small top looking exactly like a princess in this bizarre picture movie I'd seen in muggle studies that had to do with a desert and a magical lamp and some big blue man who lived inside it and granted wishes. She did look gorgeous though, and was clearly just as into the conversation as Neville was. Neville, one of the shyest boys I know, looked entirely at ease talking to the apparent girl of his dreams (while she was wearing such a revealing outfit as well!). Thank you, Slytherins, that punch done did my boy some good! I had to stop and laugh at myself for a moment, taking immense pleasure in imagining myself speaking like that in real life. I couldn't even do it. I figured it would be handy to look around everywhere for Seamus, but curiously enough, he was nowhere to be seen. The song ended and another one started to play. I didn't need to hear what they were saying to know that Parvati had asked him to dance.

I nearly burst at the seams with happiness for him, but absolutely could not believe my eyes when he shook his head in a 'no'. She looked nearly as surprised as I felt. He drew her attention to both glasses and I swear I saw him speak my name. She nodded in sad understanding, then walked away clearly disappointed. Oh, no you don't, Neville! I knocked a couple people over (myself nearly included) as I full out ran over to him. He turned just in time to see me skid to a halt. His eyes were wide with surprise.

"Oh hey, I got the―

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, gimme those!" I jerked both drinks out of his hands; he clearly didn't know what was going on. "Okay, good. Now go catch up to her!" He was still trying to process the situation and he was taking much too long.

"Wha―

"Go!" I gave him a little shove, spilling some punch onto the floor and essentially down the front of my dress. Oh well. His eyes widened even more as he finally caught on to what I meant. He opened his mouth to thank me I'm sure, but I pointed my arm in the direction that she'd gone, "Now!" He grinned and turned quickly, jogging in the same direction.

I smiled wistfully, feeling quite good about myself. I really hoped they'd work out. I looked down at the two cups in my hands, "What am I going to do with myself now?" I asked to nobody and was quite alarmed when somebody answered from behind me.

"That was a very considerate thing you just did," I turned very slowly, unsure if I really wanted it to be who I thought it was. Especially when I started to think I shouldn't be trusting my ability to form intelligent sentences.

"Well," I began, "he really was only with me because she'd said yes to someone else first. It's only fair," and despite the mask covering both his eyes and hair, I knew him well enough. Of course looking into his eyes made up my mind: I had really wanted it to be him.

His mask was some sort of black material that wound around his head, tying at the back. His whole outfit was also black, including the cape. At his hip, he had some sort of epée belted.

"Very nice, Ginevra. Or would you prefer the Madame Le Fay?" I felt an overwhelming surge of pleasure as he'd been the first person to properly identify me without my having to tell them. I personally thought it was quite obvious. The dress Hermione has forced upon me was a dark, earthy green with a square cut neckline and a plunging back. The bottom portion of the sleeves hung down nearly to my knees. The dress was embroidered delicately with golds and bronzes, while I wore nothing on my feet. I'd decided to wear them bare, but Hermione was so enthusiastic about my costume that she'd managed to transfigure some material into artificial vines that ran up my ankles and all through my flaming red hair, which had been left loose and curled. I managed to buy a simple bronze circlet in a used jewellery shop when I went out to help Neville with his costume, to finish the look. Hermione wanted my costume to be entirely perfect, so she managed to help me find an empty sword sheath, alluding to the myth of Arthur and the theft of Excalibur's sheath by his half-sister. I had it slung over my back, out of my way for the night. Of course, Neville had been King Arthur and I was his pagan sister.

"Finally, someone knows something about mythology! What about you, who are you supposed to be?"

"Well, I am quite clearly a famous muggle hero! But you wouldn't know him," he smiled cheekily.

"Try me." I could see his eyes sparkling under the mask.

"I am Zorro!" and then he did a funny little swish behind him with his cape. He sounded so excited that I nearly choked on the sip I'd only just taken. Oops, I forgot I'm not supposed to drink anymore.

"You're right, I've never heard of him."

"Laugh all you like, Miss Weasley, but I'm quite a ferocious duellist," he replied, feigning hurt.

"Having fun chaperoning a school full of hormonal teenagers?" I asked, still laughing. Even worse, drunk hormonal teenagers.

"Oh, absolutely. Most of them don't even notice I'm a staff member until I'm telling them to separate," he waited for me to stop laughing, "Actually, I think I'd rather them see me coming from a mile away, some of the things these kids get up to..." he shuddered in mock horror. How I missed talking to this man.

The song ended again, and then there was a long pause before the next song started up. I almost started to say something, then I stopped when I heard a very familiar rhythm. My jaw dropped. "You. Have. Got. To. Be. KIDDING!" Remus sort of shook his head, not entirely sure what he was supposed to be kidding about. "This is my all time favourite song that I've ever had in the whole wide world... ever! How do I not have a date to dance with right now?" Apparently he didn't seem to know either and nodded sympathetically in a 'that's very sad' type way.

I stared him down. He stared right back. I stared even harder, and something clicked in his comprehension of the situation. "Oooooh no!" he put his hands up, waving them about to accentuate his point, backing up ever so slowly.

"Oooooh yes! If I don't have a partner to dance with, I'm just going to have to force the nearest victim!" I downed my punch and the rest of Neville's, then threw the empty cups into the garbage and slowly advanced upon him, as if stalking my prey.

"Ginevra! I can't dance with you, I'm your teacher!" he tried to explain.

"No, you're Mr. Zorro tonight!" I'd had enough talking, and clearly enough to drink, so I latched onto his arm and dragged him to the dance floor. For someone who'd tried to protest so hard, he really didn't put up much of a fight. At first he wasn't very responsive, but I grabbed his hand and moved it as an extension of my own body, screaming along to the lyrics like almost every other girl in the school. I guess my absolute mania and laughter and new found alcoholic inspired courage spilled over to him as he started to laugh too, twirling me by our linked hands.

After the first song, he made as if to walk away, but I pulled him back, and he stayed without prompting. We danced for nearly three songs, until the last slow song of the night came on. I didn't have any expectations, and stood waiting for him to say that was enough, but when he didn't move, even after the new song started, I wrapped my arms around him, and grinned into his chest. When I felt him pull me closer so he could put his arms around me, I sighed a blissful breath of deep contentment. He rested his chin on top of my head, and I shut my eyes, praying the song would never end, praying I could stay in that moment of bliss forever. I'd never felt so close to another human being and I'd certainly never felt emotions like this. Sure I'd had a many number of crushes on various boys, but this was different. I felt a longing deep inside me, a longing I didn't think could ever be filled by anyone except him. I felt a stab of regret in my heart as I knew it could never be, but that didn't change anything.

We held each other a few beats after the song had ended, and then slowly released. I forced a perfectly normal smile even though my insides were churning. Even in the dark I could tell his wasn't entirely true either. He walked me to the doors of the Great Hall, then kissed my hand goodnight. I sadly watched his form retreat down the familiar path to his office, wishing my insides didn't feel so hollow.

I walked back to Gryffindor Tower, only half listening to Hermione recount all the events of her night. I was more than a little suspicious that she's gone back for more because she wasn't on cloud nine… more like twenty. "And what about you Ginny? Don't think that I didn't see you dancing with that tall, dark stranger that definitely wasn't Neville! Is something happening between the two of you?" I wished so badly that I could tell her, but I didn't know how she'd ever understand. I mean, I barely did.

TBC

Author's note: There you are folks, the dance is finally over with! I do hope you liked it, I'm trying my very best to get some more Ginny/Remus action going on because that's what we're all here for, am I right? Anyways, thanks again for the reviews, they make all this writing worth doing! Keep it up guys, you all keep me going! :)