"You ready?" Amanda said breathlessly

Jessica gave her a half smile. "Ready as I'll never be," she shrugged.

Amanda gave her an exasperated look. "Don't be like that, Jess. You're going to have fun tonight. I'll make you have fun tonight." She waved her fist threateningly.

"Uh huh," Jessica said, turning back to face the mirror. "Sure thing, Amanda. Whatever you say."

She considered her reflection for a moment, trying to think of what could be missing. She twirled her dress slightly, the tiny sequences shimmering in the candlelight. Rather than mess around with trying to get the perfect dress, she took the one that Amanda hadn't wanted. The only thing wrong with it in her opinion was that it wasn't sparkly. Consequently, she went to the library and checked out different books on how to charm clothes. Once she had started to fix the dress, she found it quite impossible to stop. As soon as she fixed one thing, another seemed wrong or out of place. Now, she stood before her mirror wearing a floor length blue silk dress which was covered in glittery sequence. She had removed the straps completely after finding that it was impossible to get them to look right. Her hair was drawn back into a curly bun, with a few stray curls left to hang down, framing her face. In her opinion, she looked like a wanna-be Tinkerbell, but Amanda said she looked like a princess.

She turned around to face Amanda, stumbling slightly. She couldn't remember the last time she had been made to wear heels. Infact, she hadn't wanted to wear them to the Ball, but Amanda had insisted.

"What's wrong?" she said, frowning slightly. "What am I missing, Amanda?"

Amanda, who had been putting her earrings in, turned to face her.

"Hmm…" she said, walking around Jessica, inspecting the dress. Suddenly, she straightened up and clapped her hands. "I know!" She hurried over to the dresser while Jessica stood there, somewhat frightened about what she might bring back. Amanda returned a moment later, grinning. As Jessica watched, she went around behind her and clasped something around the back of her neck.

Jessica looked down as a small charm on a thin silver chain came down gently on her. For a moment, she felt her heart race. She had almost completely forgotten about her scar. And now, looking at it, she saw that it was almost gone.

Amanda, who hadn't noticed came around her front, grinning broadly.

"Perfect!" she exclaimed. Then she saw the look on Jessica's face. "What's wrong, Jess? Why do you look so pale?"

"Nothing, no reason," she took a deep breath. "Just nervous I guess," she said, shrugging.

"Don't be," Amanda chided.

"Easy for you to say," Jessica scoffed. "You look great."

It was true. Amanda had finally gotten the right dress…plus a few extra spells that Jessica had learned. She, too, was wearing a floor length dress, but hers was a deep red. Jessica had insisted on making the sleeves into spaghetti strap, and putting atleast a little glitter on it. Amanda wasn't too nuts about the glitter, but agreed to fix the sleeves. When Jessica stood back to examine the dress for the first time, she was shocked at how plain it looked. To solve this, Amanda had conjured up two elbow length, pearly white gloves, which matched the cream colored beads that were set along the bottom and top hem of the dress. She wore her hair down, a variety of sparkly clips pinned throughout it.

"Stop it," she snapped. "You know that's not true. You look way better than me."

Jessica sighed. "Fine," she relented. "Let's just say that we both look hideous. Ok?"

Amanda nodded. "Right."

Two soft knocks on the door announced the arrival of her date.

Jessica turned toward the door, holding her breath.

"Now or never," she muttered more to herself than Amanda.

"Let's go," Amanda said, beckoning toward Jessica, who followed reluctantly, a very strong sense of unease settling firmly in her stomach.



Harry and Ron came thundering down the boys' staircase, Ron still attempting to button his coat properly and Harry fixing his hair. Harry stood in shock as they entered the Common Room. It was like someone had set off an explosion of color. He hadn't even seen such a variety of colors at last year's Yule Ball. All around him were dresses of bright pink and purple with enough ruffles to fill the entire castle. He was fairly sure that he had even seen one of the boys wearing a powder blue tuxedo. Glancing around, it became very apparent which of the students had come from Muggle heritage. For the most part, the outfits were normal. Nothing other than what you might find at a formal dance in high school, but here and there was a suit or dress so outrageous that Harry could only wonder where their parents might have found it.

A group of third years he had never spoken to before were sitting in the far corner, talking quietly. Two of them were dressed in perfectly normal muggle dresses. One was purple, the other green. However, the girl that was sitting adjacent to them was wearing a bright pink dress, complete with puffy shoulders and a large quantity of lace. One her head was a tall pointed hat with a yard of silk ribbon hanging from the peak. It was quite obvious to him that her parents had mistaken a princess costume for a woman's dress, but she seemed oblivious to this.

Ron nudged Harry hard in the ribs, and nodded toward the opposite end of the room. Seamus was rising from a chair, swaggering across the Common Room. Ron watched him with narrowed eyes as he passed in front of them.

Suddenly, Harry realized where he was headed.

"Ron!" he muttered. "Look!"

Seamus had stopped in front of Jessica and Amanda's door, glancing down at his watch. He knocked twice, and stood back as the door slid open. Harry's breath caught in his throat as he watched Jessica emerge and Seamus take her by the hand. Amanda stood in the doorway, looking around the Common Room, then she spotted Ron and Harry. She hurried over to them, picking her dress up slightly to prevent tripping on it.

"Hi!" she said brightly.

Ron turned as red as his hair. "Hi," he replied, grinning.

Harry stared after Seamus, who was leading Jessica out the portrait hole.

"What are they doing?" he asked Amanda curiously.

"Who?" Amanda whipped around. "Oh, Jess and Seamus. Um, well," she looked down, shuffling her feet guiltily. "Well, he asked her to the Ball a while ago…and she accepted. We were going to tell you," she added hastily, seeing their expressions, "but I told her it'd be better as a surprise."

Ron looked at Harry, eyebrows raised.

"Well. It's a surprise alright."

"Hey Harry!"

Harry spun around to see Ginny standing behind him, looking stunning in a pale lavender dress.

"Ginny?" he said breathlessly.

She nodded happily. "You look great Harry!"

Harry smiled sheepishly.

"That's not the dress mum sent you, Ginny," Ron said incredulously.

"Yes it is," she beamed. "Jess helped me fix it up."

Harry stared at her, hardly believing that it was truly Ginny Weasley standing before him.

"You look…er…pretty," he stuttered, "I mean, very pretty. Really pretty."

Ginny laughed. "Thanks, Harry." She beamed around at Ron and Amanda, who both looked like they'd just been told Snape wanted to adopt Harry. "Well, are you guys ready to go down?"

Harry glanced at Ron who returned the look.

"Why don't you girls go down without us? We just realized we forgot something," Ron said with a forced smile.

Amanda looked suspicious. "You both forgot the same thing? And you both realized it at the same time?"

Ginny, too, looked inquisitive now.

"Ya," Harry said hastily, "Um, it's er…pretty important."

Amanda stared at them a moment longer, the shrugged.

"Alright," she sighed. "Just try to be quick. Come on, Ginny." And with that, they headed toward the portrait hole, Ginny still glancing over her shoulder at Harry as though she knew there was something he wasn't telling her. He waved apologetically and held up one finger to show that he'd just be a minute.

"Phew," Ron said, watching them retreat. "Put up quite a fight, don't they?"

"Ron," Harry said, turning to him. "What are we going to do about Seamus?"

Ron bit his lip. "I don't know."

Neither of them spoke for a moment.

"You don't think," Harry began slowly, "You don't think that he's going to try and use that…that thing on Jess, do you?"

Ron paled.

"I think we should get Jess away from him as soon as possible," he muttered, looking around to make sure no one could overhear him.

"He has been acting really strange lately," Harry agreed, "Alright then. As soon as we can get her away, we do it."

Ron nodded and together they left to catch up with Ginny and Amanda.



(A/N) This chapter is sorta stupid, but hey. I wrote most of it during math class .] so review and bear with me here, I know it sucked!