A/N: I have made a terrible mistake, and it's too far along to fix. Molly Weasley had already left school once the Whomping Willow had been planted. She was gone even before Hagrid was gamekeeper (it explains in GoF)! Therefore, I ask you loving people to ignore my horrendous mistake, and I hope you continue to read the fan fiction of a warped Harry Potter fan. Anyway, this chapter will be about the Yule Ball, and my incredible plot will probably take place in the next chapter. Oh yeah, I have a little song I wanna "sing". Happy birthday 2 me, happy birthday 2 me, happy birthday beautiful, elegant, wonderful, intelligent me, happy birthday to me! February 16, thank you very much!
Girls
by Wolf Speaker
Chapter 6:
Yule Ball
"Hey, Remus!" called Molly.
"Oh, h-hi Molly," said Remus, turning red by the minute.
"I just thought you'd like to go to Hogsmade together. I know a secret passage that leads to the cellar of Honeydukes," Molly said mischievously.
"Wow. Sure, let's go!" said Remus, awed. "I thought we knew every passage out of the school," he muttered.
"Yeah, well it looks like you've finally met your match," smiled Molly. "C'mon."
Remus made a mental note to tell the guys about this one. He could now safely confirm they knew every way out of the school, and he had an idea he got from a spell book in the restricted section of the library.
"Where is this passage, anyway?" said Remus, jogging to keep up with Molly's large strides.
"It's in a 3rd floor corridor. Here it is!" said Molly quickly.
They were in front of a humpbacked, one-eyed witch.
"What do you do?" said Remus, awed.
"You tap the hump and say 'dissendium'. You ready?" grinned Molly.
"Ready when you are, captain!" said Remus.
Molly lead Remus upstairs, near the Charms classroom. When they got to the statue, Molly grinned at Remus, and took out her wand. She tapped the hump and whispered "dissendium". Suddenly, the hump opened wide enough for a fairly skinny person. Remus, for the first time in his life, was glad it had been the full moon a few days ago.
"Let's go," said Molly mischievously.
They slid down the tunnel, and once they hit the floor, they started walking on the cold floor. Remus was wishing he had brought his cloak, seeing as it was December 20th. Remus realized with a jolt that the Yule ball was a few days away. His incredibly nervous thoughts of tripping over his own feet were interrupted by him hitting his head on the trapdoor.
"Hey!" said Remus. "I thought you were leading!"
Molly smiled, and said "What? I figured you'd stop when I did, but you just kept going."
"Yeah, well, that door is solid, you know," muttered Remus.
"Oh, I know. Believe me, I've hit my head on that one a few times," said Molly. She took Remus' hand and said, "C'mon. Let's get in."
They opened the door, and stepped quietly into the cellar of Honeydukes. Remus was amazed at how much Molly knew about the school. He heard someone coming down the stairs, and they slipped behind a few boxes of Acid Pops. The Honeydukes attendant bent over, and they sneaked up the stairs into the shop.
"C'mon! I know a little shop down the road from here," said Molly. "They just opened it up."
Remus had always wondered what they were going to put on that empty lot. Unfortunately, the last Hogsmade trip was the day after the full moon. Man, he thought to himself, I really miss out on a lot due to the full moon
."Here we are!" smiled Molly, waving a hand at the store between the post office and the Three Broomsticks. It was called Zonko's.
"Zonko's? What kind of name is that?" smiled Remus, looking at the "Grand Opening" sign.
"You shouldn't judge a joke shop by its title," said Molly, straight-faced.
"Right. I'll remember that. Man, Sirius must've loved this place. I wonder why he didn't tell me about it?" he mused out loud.
"Oh, I kept him away from it, so I could tell you about it," said Molly, no trace of embarrassment in her face.
"Wow. That must've been really hard to do. Knowing Sirius, he probably tried to hex you to get past," Remus smiled.
"Pretty close," laughed Molly as they walked in.
"Welcome! You are the first customers today! You get to pick one thing for free!" smiled the attendant. "I'm Cray Zonko. Cray Z., for short."
(A/N: I know, I know, that works too well, but I had to put that in. I know a guy that's named Cray, so I had to do it)
"Hey, Cray Z. I was here the other day, so Remus here can just get something," said Molly.
"Alright then, Remus. What do you want?" smiled Cray Z.
Remus stared in wonder at all of the stuff here. From Dungballs to Nose-Biting Teacups, the store was full to fulfill even Sirius' wildest dreams. He noticed a trunk in the back that wasn't labeled, but couldn't have just been there for decoration, as it didn't do mush for it.
"What's in that trunk?" asked Remus, not really being one for jokes himself.
"Oh, well that's not a joke item, but you really don't seem the joke type anyway," chuckled Cray Z.
"I'm just too transparent," muttered Remus.
"Here, come look."
In the trunk were the most beautiful crystal roses Remus had ever seen. There was gold on the edges of each of the petals and leafs, and it seemed charmed so it would slowly change colors.
"They're beautiful," whispered Remus. "Hey, do you think you could wrap up one of these for my lady friend back there? I haven't gotten her a Christmas present yet, and one of these would be perfect."
That was a slight lie. Remus had already gotten Molly a silver necklace with a crystal charm, but this would go nicely.
"Sure," whispered Cray. After he was done discretely taking out a rose and wrapping it out of Molly's view, he said "That'll be 5 Galleons."
"Thanks," said Remus after paying. Cray Z. winked as they left.
"What did you get?" asked Molly.
"None of your business," said Remus, grinning.
"I hate secrets," mumbled Molly. "They're always either some rubbish like 'Arthur Weasley likes Molly' or 'Molly's Arthur's girlfriend'. Honestly, the day I'm his girlfriend is the day I eat my wand."
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The night of the Yule Ball, our heroes (and heroines) were a little nervous…"I'm nervous," said Remus. "What if Molly ends up wanting to dance with 'Arthur' all night?" he added, putting scorn into the name.
"Come on, Moony. Do you actually think Molly would do that?" said Peter. "What about me? We all know that Rita really likes Sirius. Why is she even going with me?"
"Because, she likes you!" said Sirius. "Besides, I wouldn't go with her if my family was going to be dropped into boiling lava. No offense, Peter."
The guys all laughed, even Peter, but James didn't look very happy.
"What's up, Prongs? You haven't been this quiet since… you were in the womb," joked Remus.
"I'm just thinking about-"
"Lily," chorused everyone. James gave them a weak smile.
"What's wrong? You guys made up, didn't you?" asked Peter, still incredibly pale.
"Yeah, but she kind of seems distant. You guys don't think-"
"No, James, there's nobody else," said Remus. "You're just too transparent, Prongs."
"I know," said Peter. "I'll bet you and Lily get married and have the weirdest kid in the wizarding world, and-"
Peter was cut off by an airborne pillow from James' bed, and a large pillow fight ensued, none of the boys realizing the ball was in 15 minutes.
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"Lily, do I really look okay?" asked Charlotte for the hundredth time.
"You look fine!" said Lily. "It's not fair that blue looks so good on you. My hair doesn't exactly go with anything."
"Lily, you look great!" said Charlotte. Lily was wearing robes of silver, with her hair pulled back into an elegant braid with small diamonds in it. Charlotte was wearing skin-tight robes of light blue. She had a necklace and earrings that were the same color, and her hair was falling in soft curls over her shoulders.
"C'mon. If we don't hurry, the guys will think we've gone completely female," joked Lily, checking her reflection in the full-length mirror one last time.
When the girls got down to the common room, the guys hadn't showed up yet. It was 10 minutes to the ball.
"Well, this is interesting," smiled Charlotte. "Aren't girls supposed to be the ones spending an hour getting ready?"
As she finished, the guys came running down the stairs, looking to be in a hurry.
"Sirius?" asked Charlotte cautiously. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't want people to think my date is an overly tall bird."
The other guys all burst out laughing, and Sirius looked angry.
"You guys! You said I got them all!" he yelled.
Charlotte took her chance and came over to take out all the feathers from Sirius' hair. When she was done, Sirius leaned over and kissed her cheek.
"Let's go," said Lily. She linked arms with James and smiled at him. Maybe they are made for each other, thought Charlotte.
Sirius followed her stare, and smiled when he saw James and Lily. Peter was right, he thought. They're going to have one messed up kid.
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"C'mon, let's dance!" said Sirius later that night.
"I'm not much of a dancer," mumbled Charlotte. She didn't know if Sirius didn't hear her or just ignored her, because he came over and pulled her onto the dance floor.
"Sirius-" she started, but Sirius had already started dancing.
"You have major psychological problems," Charlotte muttered. Sirius just laughed, proud of his "psychological problems".
~* Across the dance floor *~
"Damn. 5 Sickles to you, James," said Lily as they were dancing, watching Sirius and Charlotte.
"I told you. Sirius can charm his way into anything, and getting a girl to dance is one of them," James smiled and kissed Lily on the cheek.
As a slow song came on, Lily laid her head on James' shoulder and they swayed to the music.
"I'm glad we're not mad at each other anymore," whispered Lily, closing her eyes.
"Me too," said James. He put his chin on Lily's head, and got a glimpse of Rita Skeeter and Peter dancing. Doris kept wincing. James guessed Peter was stepping on her feet, and gave a little chuckle.
"What's so funny?" asked Lily, lifting her head and opening her eyes.
"Look at Peter," James said, nodding in his direction.
Lily smiled. Peter really didn't look like he was having much fun. Rita looked on the verge of tears of pain. Peter said something, and they went to sit down, Rita limping (A/N: She deserves it, that witch with a b)
~* Somewhere else on the dance floor *~
"You do realize your friends are watching us," said Molly as she danced close to Remus.
"Yeah, but they watch me a lot, so I'm used to it," smiled Remus.
"You do realize the ball is almost over already," said Molly.
"Yeah. Come on. Let's go into the garden," said Remus. "I still need to give you your Christmas present."
They walked out to the garden, and sat down on a bench. Remus reached into his robes, and pulled out a box wrapped in silver and with a golden bow. Molly opened it gently, as if it were going to break if she ripped the wrapping. When she opened it, she saw the beautiful rose, and practically cried.
"Remus," she whispered. "It's gorgeous. Thank you! Here's your present."
She took out slim box from her pocket. It was wrapped in a dark blue paper. Remus unwrapped it slowly, and was amazed with what he saw. There was a long, dark blue cord with a single, full moon pendant on it.
"It's for your transformations. It makes them less painful," whispered Molly.
"How did you-?" started Remus.
"I'm not completely dim, Remus," smiled Molly. "I know simply by the obvious. Your friends aren't the only clever ones to figure out your secret."
"Thank you," whispered Remus finally. "You don't know how much this means to me."
"Merry Christmas, Remus J. Lupin."
"Merry Christmas, Molly."
A/N: Yes, that did take a while, but I really needed a break from using that thing in my skull. I really don't use it much. Anyway, my next chapter will have that little bit that I mentioned a few chapters ago. I'm skipping many months, because I can't put my beautiful plot in the story during the term. You people had better review, though, because I'm going to go crazy if I don't get at least one review saying "Happy Birthday". I'll just have to make you people wait longer for that cliff-hanger on At Last, though, because I've decided if I don't get more reviews for that, I'm discontinuing it. Thank you, and I'll leave you with a cute little quote that I got from the greatest story, Lessons for Life by Caitlin.
"He who writes the perfect fic may write the first flame," -Caitlin
