"Moony?" asked Peter.
Remus shook his head. "Sorry," he said. "I'm listening. What's the problem?"
"Well," Peter took a deep breath - apparently this was going to be rather a long story. "In Runes yesterday, Robert Denison dared me to draw this one rune above my bellybutton, and... uh... well, it made me have to go to the bathroom. Really, really have to go to the bathroom."
"Uh-huh," said Remus. Peter had a habit of explaining things in far more detail than was necessary, and James and Sirius were often not as patient with him as they should have been. Remus tried his best to make up for it by listening attentively, even when Peter talked about things like this.
"And... well, I was gonna wet myself if I waited," Peter turned quite pink, "so I just ran into the first bathroom I saw... and it was the girls', but there was nobody in there, so I just ran into a stall and went... and it turned out to be Moaning Myrtle's toilet."
Remus winced in sympathy. Female students at Hogwarts soon learned not to use that particular bathroom - Moaning Myrtle did not take kindly to being peed on. "What's that got to do with a date for the ball?" he asked.
"Well, she got mad at me," said Peter. "And she was crying away, and I kept telling her and telling her that I hadn't known she was in there, but she wouldn't listen, and... well, I asked her to the ball."
James or Sirius would have laughed themselves sick. Remus was just confused.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because I thought it would make her stop crying," said Peter. "And it did. But the only thing is, now..."
"Now you have to go to the ball with her," said Remus.
Peter nodded, utterly miserable. "What should I do?" he asked.
Another of Peter's unfortunate habits was an apparent conviction that the marauders could do anything. In this case, it made Remus squirm. Peter had the faith of a child that Remus would have a solution for him... while Remus, of course, had no ideas whatsoever.
"I'll have to think about that," he said, then got a sudden idea. "Hey... how about the Room of Requirement?"
"Huh?" asked Peter.
"The Room of Requirement," said Remus. "You've got a problem you need a solution to, right? Why not see what the Room of Requirement gives you. It worked for me," he added.
"It did?" Peter frowned. "When?"
"That's where I met Vivian," Remus confided.
"In the Room of Requirement?"
"Yeah."
"I thought you were joking about that," said Peter.
"I was, sort of," Remus admitted. "But I wanted to see what would happen, so I went and took a look, and Vivan was in there - turns out she uses it as a study room. If it can get me a date, I'm sure it can get you a solution to having to go to the ball with Moaning Myrtle."
Peter didn't look terribly sure, but he nodded. "I'll try that," he said.
"And if it doesn't work," said Remus, "we still have ten days. That's lots of time to think of something else."
"That's true," said Peter, brightening. "Come on, we'll miss the party!"
The party in the Gryffindor common room went on most of the rest of the day. The marauders were the heroes of the hour and basked in it... or at least, James did. Sirius sat by himself in a corner, drinking unhealthy amounts of butterbeer, and ignored - or at best, grunted at - anyone who tried to talk to him. And Remus was for the most part too worried about Sirius to have very much fun.
Besides... the party somehow paled in comparison to the idea that he was going to Hogsmeade with Vivian tomorrow. The thought of that made the bottom of his stomach tickle in a way he couldn't remember ever feeling before. When the party was over, he sat down on his bed and prepared in some detail; he went through that old essay and carefully underlined things he thought would be of particular use to her. He made a list of the library books he'd used as references, and made sure he had some money, then sat and dug through his trunk trying to figure out what he was going to wear.
It occured to him as he did that this was sort of ridiculous. It was supposed to be girls who spent all night before a date angsting about what they were going to wear. But this was the first time Remus had ever been on a date - even a rather unofficial one - with a girl he actually wanted to spend the time with, and clothes suddenly took on a rather disproportionate importance. He couldn't possibly wear his school robes, of course. Dress robes were far too formal, but if Vivian was from a rich and important pureblood family, he could hardly show up in a t-shirt and jeans.
He eventually settled on his school slacks - the only non-jean trousers he owned - and a fairly nice polo shirt. It would probably make him look like a dweeb, but Remus wasn't James or Sirius. They were the handsome ones... with Remus, 'dweeb' was generally about as good as it got.
Once he was done with the clothes, the next thing to occur to him was whether he ought to take her a present. If she was going to buy him lunch, it seemed only fair that he should bring something for her. But what? Flowers seemed far too formal - this was, after all, an unofficial date if it was a date at all. But what did that leave? What did you get a girl, anyway? What did girls like?
This was something of a problem... the only girls Remus had much experience with were the triplets, who'd never expected more than token things like wrist corsages, and ones he was related to. The only idea he had was a vague impression of what he shouldn't get - nothing too fancy, nothing too expensive, nothing too gooey, and nothing too boyish. That narrowed it down quite a bit, and he wasn't entirely sure what it left...
... which was why, on Sunday, he found himself waiting for Vivian outside the Ravenclaw common room - the entrance was, of course, in the library - in his slacks and polo shirt, holding a big box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.
They'd seemed like a good enough choice. The company advertised that the beans had something everybody would like, and that was true enough, but they also had something everybody wouldn't like, and he found himself suddenly sweating over them. What if Vivian thought they were too frivolous a gift? What if she didn't like the beans at all, or had some kind of allergy and couldn't eat them? All in all, he was sweating bullets by the time she showed up.
To make things much worse, the bookshelves kept swinging open and shut as Ravenclaws came and went. Remus seemed to stand there for hours, though it was really only about ten minutes, waiting and waiting and waiting and getting more and more nervous. Finally, the shelf creaked open, and Vivian stepped out.
Remus nearly dropped the beans. Now he could believe she was from a rich pureblood family; rather than the Muggle clothes a lot of the middle-class or muggleborn students hung out in, she was wearing wine-coloured robes with trailing medieval sleeves and quite a bit of gold embroidery. It looked more like the things the stuck-up Slytherins wore on their off days, and Remus suddenly felt hopelessly inadequate.
"Hi," said Vivian, smiling.
"Hi," said Remus. "Um... you look fantastic." Peter was absolutely right; Vivian might not have been James and Sirius' ridiculously high ideal of beautiful, but she was definitely pretty enough to make his knees weak.
"Thanks," she looked away. "I'm sorry, I know this must seem like a little much, but my Mum is always telling me that I need to dress like a lady. My family says they're descended from Merlin," she added apologetically, "and a lot of them get stuck up about it. I'd've come in Muggle clothes if I had any."
"No," said Remus. "No. Um, I mean, you should wear what you want, of course, but that looks really good. You look like a princess." He didn't realize until after the words were already out how trite they sounded, and he could feel his face heating up. "Um," he licked his lips, then held out the beans. "I brought you some jellybeans. I figured everybody likes Bertie Bott's, although if you don't, we could get something else..."
He stopped mid-sentence and looked at his shoes. Damn, he was just humiliating himself, wasn't he? Why hadn't he asked James or Sirius for advice? Well, okay, there was the fact that Sirius was sulking and James didn't think of Vivian as datable material... but surely, they'd have been willing to help a friend who didn't know nearly what they did about the female mind. Any moment now, she was just going to turn around and go right back into her dorm rather than spend the day with this idiot from Gryffindor, he just knew it.
But she didn't. Instead, she smiled and accepted the beans. "Thank you," she said. "I love Bertie Bott's. Have you ever found one of the candy apple flavour?"
"I might have," said Remus. He hesitated, not sure if he wanted to say what he was tempted to add to the statement. But if she'd stuck this out so far, he probably couldn't make it much worse. "I don't really know the good flavours very well. My friends and I like to sit around and dare each other to eat the bad ones."
"Then we'll definitely have to find you a candy apple one," said Vivian. "They're really good, I promise. Did you know," she said, "if you ask, Honeydukes will sell you the beans by flavour instead of in an assortment."
"No, I didn't," said Remus.
"They don't advertise it," Vivian said, "and you have to know a password. I'll show you." She offered him a hand. He took it, unable to keep himself from grinning like an idiot as he did, but he probably had every right to grin. Still holding hands, they left the library and started down the staircase, heading for the front courtyard.
Remus felt he ought to say something, but nothing really came to mind that wasn't dumb. So he said, "I brought the essay. And I made up a reading list for you, too. I hope it helps."
"Great," said Vivian. "Thanks, I really appreciate it."
"You're welcome," said Remus.
"You really don't know how glad I am that you're helping me," Vivian said. "I'd never be able to do this on my own."
"Oh, sure you would," said Remus. "You're a Ravenclaw, right? You're smart."
"Yeah, but I have an awful time writing about something I don't agree with," she sighed. "I'm too honest - that's what my brother says. He says that's why I didn't get into Slytherin. I don't really think that's as big a deal as he does - my family's always been kinda spread out in all the houses - but he's right, I really am too honest." She shivered. "I hate werewolves."
It was all Remus could do not to fall over his own feet. Suddenly, he felt very cold. "You do?" he asked.
She nodded. "Yeah."
"Um." Remus licked his lips. "Why's that?"
She looked at her feet. "It's sort of a long story," she sighed. "I'll tell you after lunch."