Title: Goodnight, Stars
Chapter: The Halloween Ball
Author: Cinnamon Sunrise
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Wow, as if you need to hear me reiterate this yet again…I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER! I am a measly Fan Fiction writer! JK Rowling owns (almost) everything!
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The autumn slowly drifted by. Surprisingly, my position as Head Girl had caused my popularity with the girls in the school to surge; I found myself surrounded with more friends than I had ever had. Truest and most entertaining, the boys stayed at the center of my life. James and I grew closer throughout the school year's beginning. We were still young, immature, but we managed our personal and professional, professional being Head duties and school work, relationships reasonably well. Rounds were always fun, we made sure that we were always together. My relationship with the other boys, much to my delight, only grew stronger. I finally got my Apparition certified one weekend at Hogsmede, very happy about that. Life was nice, peaceful, calm, minus the loads of 7th year N.E.W.T. preparation. Towards the beginning of the year, we had heard stories of strange muggle deaths, a mysterious wizard involvement. Nobody thought too much about it, at least nobody under the age of 20 or so. We were too careless back then, life seemed so, so perfect. Near the end of October, all that were planning to attend the dance bought dress robes. I went shopping with some of my girlfriends; I wanted James to be surprised when I showed up in my forest green robes. One of the girls, I forget who, made me purchase them in that particular color, matched my eyes, she said. In any case, the dance approached before long, leaving all those attending in utter excitement. The afternoon of Halloween ended up being the last before it began, or at least before we were informed. We were all so happy, so normal then. It was when the afternoon sun still shown warm on Hogwarts; before our world turned itself upside down.
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"Lily!" A girl squealed, looking up from a book of beauty spells, "You look absolutely darling!" Lily grinned. While the other girls had spent the afternoon looking up spells to make themselves more attractive, she had concentrated on looking as nice as possible, naturally. Her auburn hair was silken from a hair brush rather than a wand, her teeth gleaming from brushing, not cursing. She couldn't wait to see James. She wondered what color robes he would be wearing, how his messy black hair would look accompanied by dress robes. The entire day, Lily had felt a knot grow in her stomach; she knew she looked as pretty as she ever had, but stupid, pestering thoughts kept running through her mind. She was nervous that James would be displeased at her taste in robes, green being the Slytherin color and all. She was worried that she wouldn't be able to dance right, due to the fact that this was her first dance. Ever. She had no time to linger on thoughts of worriment. She took a deep breath, joining the others in walking out of the girls' dorm into the common room, where the boys were waiting.
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I can still remember fretting about the most meaningless things that day. It took us the entire afternoon to get ready for that dance, all the Gryffindor girls got together in the 7th year dormitory to primp themselves. We walked downstairs, into the common room, and seeing James cleared my mind of any worry. He looked fantastic.
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Lily was surrounded by fits of giggles; it seemed the stairway had unofficially become the meeting spot of Gryffindor couples. She pushed her way through, making her way over to James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter; who were, no doubt trying to look suave, standing near the fireplace, waiting for their dates. "James!" Lily called, making her way over. A few of the younger years laughed. The Head Boy and Head Girl were so obviously a couple, one could only imagine the snide remarks other students had come up with. James looked up after hearing his name, looking at, what he decided, was the most beautiful girl in the school. He was dressed in dark smoky gray robes, which looked surprisingly astonishing against Lily's green.
"Lily! You look wonderful!" James said, eyeing her dark green robes. Sirius grinned.
"Lily, looking smashing, of course." He bowed like a gentleman, receiving a rude look from his date, a stunning Gryffindor 6th year. "Come on, love." He took the 6th year's hand. "We need to make an appearance at the dance, and then we can get to know each other a bit, how's that sound?" He grinned cheekily, winking at James. The girl's blue eyes brightened as Sirius escorted her to the dungeon.
"Merlin, how does he pull off such tacky lines without a smack?" Remus sighed, rolling his eyes, his mouth curling into a smile as his girlfriend Marian wrapped her arms around his neck. She was dressed in pale pink designer robes, ruffled and fancy, which completely clashed with Remus' tattered and used ginger ensemble. Peter was going with a shy 5th year Hufflepuff, who he'd be meeting at the dungeon, although he wasn't quite sure of her name. James had only asked her for Peter a week earlier, when he learned that a member of their circle was going stag. The group of five made their way out of the common room, Lily and Marian excitedly discussing the musical guest, Waldo Worloche and the Warlocks, James and Remus smiling at their dates, and Peter trailing behind, alone. He had never really been completely accepted into the group, and it pained him that Lily's friendship had been received so easily. It was probably because he was an annoying wannabe, but that's beside the point.
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The dungeon was brilliantly decorated, better than any Halloween feast I had attended. Giant pumpkins, thanks to Hagrid, were in abundance, as were huge cobwebs and everything else remotely Halloween associated. The band was playing, and students were already embraced, dancing on the floor. We met up with Sirius and his date, who had just stepped off the dance floor. Sirius, being the ultimate ladies man in our day at Hogwarts, was quite a dancer. Remus and his date left to give the dance floor a chance, and Peter and his date were trying some of the snacks. It seemed everyone was in attendance, even the foul Severus Snape had a date. Annette, the Ravenclaw Prefect, was eyeing James and myself jealously. Her date, Richard, a fellow Prefect, was just a step up from Snape. The usually coldness of the dungeon had been replaced with the heat of countless students crammed into a small space, so I went to go get four bottles of butterbeer. When I returned, James was gone.
*~*~*
"Thanks, Lily!" The blue eyed brunette smiled politely up at Lily, taking a swig from her bottle.
"Here, Sirius," She handed him a bottle, looking around in puzzlement. "What happened to James?" She asked, slightly hurt at the fact that he had disappeared on her.
"Oh, yeah," Sirius said, between swigs of butterbeer, "Dumbledore needed to talk to him. Head Boy stuff or something." Sirius shrugged.
"Well, I'm Head Girl," Lily said, her voice dense with a mixture of pride and confusion. "Does he need me too?"
"Oooh! Sirius!" The 6th year girl called, interrupting Lily's train of thought. "I'll be right back," she kissed his cheek, "I just want to talk to my friends for a minute."
"Ok, love, but don't be gone too long!" He blew the girl a kiss. Lily shook her head, he could be nauseating. He looked back at Lily, smirking. "To answer your question, Ms. Evans, no. James asked, but Dumbledore said that the matter could be dealt with just him at the moment." Lily looked slightly put off; it seemed quite untrue that the Head Boy was capable of dealing with anything better than the Head Girl, especially her. The band was in between numbers, and the orchestra began to play a spooky instrumental tune. Sirius, seeing the annoyance in Lily's eyes, grabbed her hand. "Care to dance?" He asked, seeing his date tied up with the gossip queens of the 6th year. Lily raised an eyebrow. Wasn't her first dance at the ball supposed to be reserved for her date? She sighed; James was too busy with "important matters" to come dance with her. Lily bit her lip, remembering that Sirius was one of her best friends, and that if James was busy, she should occupy herself as well.
"I'd love to." She said, grinning widely. They made their way onto the floor; Sirius wrapped his arms around her. She quickly caught onto his lead, although the song was quite different from what she imagined, what she had seen, in muggle movies. It started very slow, and then the speed gained until they were practically running around the floor, and then it surprisingly was slow again. Sirius was a great dancer and had facial expressions that matched his every move. Lily laughed to herself realizing how hard it would be for James to live up to Sirius' dance. The atmosphere of the dungeon added to the Halloween theme, and as the song ended, Lily felt chills run up her spine. As she tried to shrug them off, she realized that it was nothing other than a hand, rubbing against her dress robe. She quickly shot around, only to find herself face to face with James, while hearing Sirius snigger in laughter.
"Lily." James said, his face looking pale and lifeless.
"James!" Lily exclaimed, noticing his cheerless face and dragging him off the floor, into a quiet corner. Sirius tried to follow, but was cut off when his date approached him, leaving the Head Boy and Girl alone. "What's wrong? You look absolutely dreadful, James!" She noticed his grey eyes were sunken in a bit, he looked horribly distraught.
"Nothing." He said shallowly. Lily studied his face.
"Nothing my arse." She said, causing his eyes to widen. "James, please tell me." Her voice had turned softer, "I know Dumbledore had to talk to you about something important, and he chose you to tell because you're Head Boy. James, you can tell me, whatever it was he said, I can handle it as well as you can." She looked deep into his eyes, finding only hidden pain.
"Lily, please." He pleaded, taking her hand. "I'm going to tell you it all, everything, I am. Dumbledore wants me to, and I want to." He sighed. "But not tonight. Everything here, it's all set up for, for everyone in the school," he paused, "to have fun." He smiled a large fake grin, "So how about a dance?" Lily was speechless; she had never seen James upset, let alone dejected. She knew he would tell her, she knew he had his reasons for forging happiness just then, so she too plastered on a fake smile, following him back to the dance floor.
*~*~*
Sirius and I anxiously awaited his return. Head Boy business was never a good term, and when James came back, he looked nothing less than awful. We tried to enjoy the rest of that night, we really did. But seeing James distraught was so odd, it made me feel horrible. We danced a little, both of us pretending to be in high spirit, especially when others were near. The dance ended late, and instead of an explanation from James, he only left me alone, in the common room, while he left for the owlery. I retreated to my room that night on my own; confused, worried, and a bit scared over what I knew James was hiding.
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A/N: Still kind of short and shallow, but I'm building towards next chapters. Anyhow, I'd love to know what you all are thinking about my story, so please don't hesitate to review! Nice or harsh, I appreciate all!
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cinnamonsunrise@hotmail.com