disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

Ch 12 PARTY PEOPLE

"Merlin, look at you! James is going to swallow his tongue when he sees you!" exclaimed a terribly excited Rose entering Ellen's and Minerva's room, which had for the time being been transformed in a beauty shop/spa for every girl in Gryffindor who was planning to participate in the party.

I'd rather he swallowed mi-

Minerva cut that though off with a vicious shake of her head, and asked in her haughtiest tone "What does he have to do with anything regarding how I look?"

Rose smiled and didn't answer, instead she went looking for Ellen, dodging mascara tubes and high heels every two steps.

Minerva sighed, she seemed to do that a lot recently, and looked at herself in the mirror, the shiny silver-blue dress with off the shoulder short sleeves and a knee-length, flowing skirt was gorgeous, her hair, for the first time in about three months, was tidy and fell on her back like a sleek blonde waterfall, she wore enough make-up to make her eyes look big and somewhat mysterious.

Unbelievable. Un-freaking-believable.

She almost looked beautiful.

What a shame that she knew that as soon as she opened her mouth the spell would break.

In her rush to make her feelings for Potter disappear she had forgotten the reason why she didn't go to parties and didn't have a boyfriend.

She couldn't flirt. Not even if her life depended on it.

Playing coy, batting her eyelashes and pouting were such foreign concepts to her that she could not even picture herself trying to do such things.

Some girls learned to flirt, some, like Ellen, didn't even need to try, when they laughed, everyone in the room naturally turned to stare at them, some, like her, had better keep their mouth shut to avoid scaring the crap out of every guy in earing distance.

Such was life.

When Ellen and Rose called out to her and told her they were going, she gathered all the confidence she could muster and followed them in the common room.

...

James was sitting in an armchair in the common room waiting for Fred to work up the guts to ask to the party his crush, Melanie O'Neil, a girl with black hair and a very sweet smile, when he saw movement come from the girls' dorm, he turned hoping to catch a glimpse of Hill, instead he saw Rose coming down the stairs with a too short dress – she was going to catch her death – and Ellen following her down.

He blinked surprised.

Ellen was very cute in her gold dress but what was reaaally interesting was the way his brother's green eyes were trained on her.

Little Albie was all grown up!

He had just decided to get up and tease him about it in a very brotherly fashion when, for the second time in a month, his brain stopped working.

Dammit, dammit, dammit!

She had no right to look that beautiful!

He couldn't even contemplate to keep his mind away from dangerous thoughts as she looked his way with those sparkling, blue eyes of hers.

He couldn't help it, he checked her out from head to toe.

If she caught him staring, or worse, positively drooling, that was her own damn fault.

...

Albus caught himself almost drooling over Ellen, and told himself that if he continued like that he'd kiss any chance with her goodbye, first he had to get together his brother and her best friend, then he could concentrate on getting her to like him.

Not that the first task would be all that difficult judging by the way his brother was checking out Minerva and her legs, and by the way Minerva herself was staring at James.

He wondered how in hell could they be so damn oblivious.

...

He looks so delicious.

Ellen was startled at her own thought.

No way, it wouldn't do.

She couldn't keep this up, he was going to find out and run away, as any sane person would, from her suddenly very, very friendly intentions.

Aww, his shirt looks so rumpled, and his hair is sticking up on the back of his head.

She honestly didn't know why she found such things cute.

It only happened around Albus Severus Potter.

...

It was all that goddamn James Potter's fault!

If he stopped looking at her like that, she would finally regain all her mental faculties and quit dazedly thinking just how damn hot he looked in a white shirt and those tight jeans.

Minerva prayed not to stumble on the stairs and tried, tried really hard to stop looking at Potter, but really, he was staring at her like he actually found her attractive, and as much as she wished not to, she did like the guy, so…

To hell with it, she'd stare, she'd blush and if she got her hands on some fire whiskey, she'd even kiss the guy.

After that she'd actively find something else to distract her, until her crush disappeared.

When she got at the bottom of the stairs she was so nervous she was trembling, and try as she might she couldn't stop it. In a desperate effort to hide her self-consciousness as she made her way to Potter she tilted her head to the side and raised one eyebrow, in a move that could seem flirtatious but was supposed to be taunting, and asked "Seen something you fancy, Potter?"

After the worlds left her mouth she realized just how coy that sounded.

Potter's gaze swept over her from head to toe again oh-so-slowly and he drawled "Yeah."

She flushed.

Minerva had expected some kind of comeback, a snort, something, anything but that.

When Len called out to her and urged her to get a move on she fled, immensely relieved.

Still she could feel his eyes burning on her back.

...

Ellen noticed things were looking up for their plan when she clearly saw how sizzling was the tension between James and Evie, after they got to the Room of Requirements, sneaking out of the Gryffindor Tower, she winked at Albus to signal the official start of the operation "get the two troublesome idiots together", operation "idiots" for short.

The plan was simple, force them to go to the Hog's Head to get drinks and then trap them in the passage for a short while, hoping hormones would help their cause.

The difficult part would be actually getting them in the passage.

"Evie, how do you think we will get the drinks in?"

Her best friend looked startled "You mean you didn't prepare them before hand? Hell, Len, that was the only thing you guys had to do!"

Ellen shrugged and smiled sheepishly, thinking that she should get an Oscar for such a wonderful performance.

"Well, there's always the secret passage to the Hog's Head."

"Oh, Evie! You're a genius. If you go get them I'll do your homework for a week!"

Ellen feared she had played the wrong card when Evie turned to her saying "Why don't you go? It would save you a lot of trouble."

"But I can't!" she spread her arms "Look at my shoes, I'll fall at the first step in the tunnel!"

Minerva reluctantly looked at Ellen's high heels and then at her flat blue shoes, her friend had a point, but she had plans for the night and missing the start of the party was not one of them.

She sighed. It all came down to one thing: could she carry out her agenda without some liquid courage?

No way in hell, that was what she decided.

"Alright, I'll go. But you owe me."

Ellen smiled and pointed to the entrance of the passage "Wait there, I'll get someone to help you."

When Ellend come back Minerva saw that her enlisted help would not be helpful at all.

Potter.

Of all people she had to get Potter.

Either her friend was a sadist or something was up.

She opened her mouth to say so but Potter cut her off "Don't tell me you want to back out? Afraid of the creepy, dark tunnel?"

Forgetting everything but Potter's taunt she answered without thought "Like hell, let's get going."

But when Potter opened the entrance for her, let her in first in an uncharacteristic chivalrous move and closed it behind him, she knew she was done for.

Sorry for the loooooooong wait, I had kinda the writer block. And judging by how messed up this chapter is I still have it.

Sooo, I finally got around to write the Christmas party, while I wrote I thought it would be nice to play a bit with the povs, please tell me what you think about it.

I know it's cliff-hanger-ish and there's too much thought and not enough action but I really couldn't help it.