A/N Oh no! A Yule Ball scene? Sorry people, but I'm still doing it, no matter how overused it is. Thanks to all who reviewed! (and to all who just plain read). If anyone likes PotC, check out my other story, 'For the Love of the Sea'

Everyone noticed the change in the Head Boy. His mouth was no longer drawn down in a perpetual scowl, and his eyes had lost their bitterness. He was actually seen helping a first year whose bag had broken, whereas in the past, he simply would've just ignored her.

Nicolette Parkinson-Malfoy could be heard bawling 'I know he's found another girl!' in the halls, only to be comforted by Maurice Elman, the rather handsome Slytherin team Captain, which shut her up immediately.

Rose and Lucas' fights began to lack their usual flair, almost as if they were doing them for the sake of duty – they both felt that they had to argue, to keep up appearances. Still, the fights were still so common that one particular afternoon found Lianne on the floor of Professor McGonagall's room, pleading.

'Professor,' she sobbed dramatically 'I fear Madam Potter and Sir Nielson will happen to 'accidentally' manage to kill each other. Tie them to a post, get restraining orders, anything!'

A bemused Professor McGonagall watched her student grovel. Badly, mind you, but still rather amusing. It was eerily reminiscent of Sirius Black. She found she had to concentrate to keep her lips thin, her customary expression of displeasure.

'Ms. Lupin, remove yourself from the floor at once! I shall speak to Ms. Potter and Mr. Nielson about overcoming their differences, rest assured, but there is no need to cause such a scene!'

'Just adding effect, Professor,' said Lianne, bowing meekly. 'Just adding effect.'

'As heads, you two are in charge of planning the Yule Ball.' Aberforth Dumbledore looked at the two teenagers in front of him sternly. 'I must ask you to work out your differences. We simply cannot have our heads behaving like this. This is a warning, Ms. Potter, Mr. Nielson.'

The heads in question nodded solemnly, and then walked out of the headmaster's office. Lucas and Rose spun around to face each other.

'Damnitt, Nielson, if you weren't so impossible –'

'I'm impossible? You're –'

'Enough!' four voices chorused in unison. Rose and Lucas turned to look at Calder, Lianne, Lotte, and Harry, who were all glaring. Lotte walked up to Lucas, and shoved her finger into his chest.

'You! Quit being such a prat!'

Rose smiled at her gratefully, but Lotte swept over to her, shoving the same finger into her chest.

'Rose Potter! You're being just as much of a prat as he is! Honestly,' she said, facing both of them 'you're both allowed to get along, you just haven't realized it. Now,'

Lotte stalked over to a bemused Harry, and grabbed parchment and a quill from his bag. She shoved them into Rose's hands.

'take these, go to the library, and plan! I don't care how much you two hate each other, I want a decent Yule Ball for my last year at Hogwarts, and I want some peace and quiet. Well? Go!'

She shoved the appalled Lucas and Rose in the direction of the library. They walked in a very scared, tense silence.

Lucas and Rose sat down. Finally, Lucas broke the uncomfortable silence.

'She was always so quiet,' he muttered thoughtfully.

Rose laughed. Lucas looked up, surprised.

'You've obviously never gotten on her bad side. She doesn't blow up like that without reason.'

'How'd you find out?' Lucas was actually smiling at her.

'During 5th year, before the O.W.L.'s. I studied like a madwoman –'

Lucas muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, 'maybe because you are one,' but she ignored him.

'She finally got so fed up with me that she forcibly pulled me out of the library, sat me by the lake, and then hid all my books.'

'I studied like that, too,' Lucas kept on talking. He couldn't stop himself 'but everyone kept their distance.'

'That's because you don't let yourself have any real friends.' The words tumbled out of Rose's mouth, but she was dying to say the things she couldn't say to him while she was a cougar.

'You're too busy trying to scare everyone away, because you don't know what would happen if your family learned you were friendly with Gryffindors, but you don't like your Slytherin friends enough to confide in them.'

Lucas' mouth was hanging open. He looked angry, surprised, ashamed, then angry again. Finally, he settled on awe.

'Holy shit,' he breathed 'you should hire yourself out as a psychiatrist.'

'You know what a psychiatrist is?' Rose looked at him curiously.

'Who wouldn't? Oh,' he said, realizing why she was looking at him like that 'wizards have them too. Why would I care about muggles?'

Rose looked at him reproachfully. 'You just keep telling yourself that,' she said. 'Maybe one day you'll believe it!'

Lucas leaned back and held his hands up. 'Alright,' he said, grinning lopsidedly. 'you got me. I have a secret muggle fetish.'

Rose burst out laughing. Lucas did too. He couldn't help himself. And as he looked at the Head girl, he thought about what Narcissa had told him to do.

He realized he couldn't do it.

When Rose walked into the common room later that day, she found Lotte, Harry, Calder, and Lianne waiting for her.

'What?' she demanded irritably.

'How'd it go? Did you have mad sex among the bookshelves?'

'Li! That's gross!' Rose felt her face grow hot.

'No, actually, it was on one of those little table things.' Lucas swept up to the boy's dormitories.

'Lucas Nielson! We did no such thing, you pervert!'

Lotte grinned smugly. 'I am good.'

Rose short her a dirty glare and stalked up to the girl's dormitories.

'This is going to be fun,' Calder said happily.

'Navy blue or royal blue?'

Rose and Lucas were doing their rounds. Rose had a notebook and a quill, and she was frowning at it, scribbling things here and there.

'Silver or gold? Candles? Lucas, are you even listening to me?'

Lucas took her by the wrist, and pulled her to a stone bench conveniently located in the hall. He sat Rose down carefully, and then sat next to her.

'I was waiting for you to stop talking at me. Rose, give me the notebook.' He pried it out of her fingers, showing more care than he had ever shown in his life. 'You're worrying too much. Relax, okay? The Yule Ball's a month away.'

Rose glared at him, and stood up.

'I am not a child! I can take care of myself!'

Lucas stood up as well, looking angry.

'Well, I'm sorry for caring! Hell, I thought we were getting along, maybe even becoming friends. You were right,' he continued 'I've never had a friend. And I would like one. Guess you don't. God, I don't even know how Lupin, Weasley, and the Longbottoms even stand you.' He stalked off, not caring where he was going.

Rose looked after him in shock. Lucas Nielson cared about her? He wanted to be her friend? And he was right. She had been acting like a child.

'Stupid, stupid,' she muttered, as she concentrated on becoming a cougar.

Lucas had walked and walked until he decided he didn't want to anymore. He sat heavily down on the floor, not caring that he should be doing his rounds.

Care about one person, and his whole life had been turned upside-down. He could see the reason in Snape's arguments, now. But hell, he didn't want to turn out to be anything remotely like the greasy bastard.

Something nudged his knee, and he looked up, and was surprised to see the cougar from the forbidden forest.

'Bloody fucking hell,' he swore. Then he swore some more.

'What if someone finds you?' he hissed. 'You can't be here! At all! Shoo!' he tried to nudge it in the direction of a door that he knew led to the grounds, but it wouldn't budge. Instead, it yawned, and laid itself in his lap.

'You're way too big for that, y'know.'

The cougar looked at him, as if to say 'so?'

Lucas laughed. 'You're as stubborn as Rose is,' he told it admiringly.

'That's actually why I'm not doing my rounds – we had a fight. This friend business is hard. Or, was. Was it something I did? No, even I know that. I suppose I'll have to go apologize to her.'

The cougar snorted.

'I sound like her boyfriend, don't I? But I can't like any girl. That isn't a Slytherin. Narcissa still thinks I care about Nicolette. She's such a little leech. I'd rather have R – a Gryffindor girl! Yes. A Gryffindor girl. But it's no use wishing for what we can't have, eh? You really have to go, now. Please.'

The cougar got up, and did something it had never done before: it licked his cheek.

'Ew,' he said, laughing as he had not laughed since the day in the library with Rose, and wiping his face. 'I love you too. Now go!'

The cougar left.

Lucas sighed.

'Never thought I'd say 'I love you' to anything. Why did I almost say I'd rather have Rose than Nicolette? Our relationship is purely platonic. Yes,' he said, as if convincing himself. 'Purely platonic.'

Hidden in a secret passage behind a tapestry just around the corner, Rose heard him.

'Yes,' she said, although a slight note of uncertainty could be detected in her voice. 'Purely platonic.'

Rose looked up sleepily from the couch. Finally, she thought, as she saw Lucas emerge through the portrait of the Fat Lady. She walked over to him.

'Rose, I'm –'

Rose reached over and wrapped her arms around his neck, squeezing tight. ''Night,' she murmured sleepily, before walking up to her dorm.

Long after Rose had gone to bed, Lucas sat in front of the fire, trying to collect his thoughts.

A/N Yule Ball scene next chapter!