In my dream there was a golden tree, artificial autumn. It glistened like sunlight was streaming though the leaves, but that wasn't the sun, shinning in the blood red sky, it was the moon. A full silver moon starring down at me as I walked along the forest floor.
"Jen." Someone was calling. I whipped around, but no one was there.
It was there, waiting, whispering, hanging on the tip of my tongue. I knew it. I knew I knew it. It knew I knew it. And yet…I didn't know it. It was… He was…
"YOU'RE INVITED!"
"Ahhh!" I sat bolt upright, waking up to a very, very overly pleasant (to the point that it was downright unpleasant) speaking party hat. Minor correction: screaming party hat.
"TO THE MIDNIGHT MASQUERADE! OCTOBER 31ST! 9PM TO 1AM! WEAR A COSTUME! MORE INFO TO COME!"
And with that, that hat zoomed off, undoubtedly to annoy someone else.
"What the—" I began. I looked around the room, Kim and Alice were already up, dressed, and having a conversation on Alice's bed. I changed gears. "Morning."
Alice laughed. "Morning. We were just about to wake you; there's been a change of plans."
"Plans?"
"Sirius's party," Kim cut in, "is now the 'Midnight Masquerade.' School sanctioned. Everyone's invited. To be chaired by Lily Evans."
"Huh. How did that happen?"
"Apparently," Kim dished, "James asked Lily, and she just hated the idea of this excusive, against-the-rules, party. So she said she'd take it over."
"And come on," Alice added, "It's not like those boys would make great planners anyway. It probably wouldn't have even happened. Now we get to dress up and everything."
"Ah well." School sanctioned, I thought, does not sound like fun. But masquerade…I grinned, "Now we can spend some more time in that muggle costume shop!"
Alice and Kim groaned.
"No way," Kim put in, before I could get any ideas. "Not too much information is out yet, but you're supposed to dress kind of nice."
"Costume party?"
"In name only. Masks are as far as that goes."
"Bo-oring."
"Yeah well, the Prefects are organizing it."
"Well then," I took a big breath, "We are going to need some kick-ass dresses and some killer masks."
When we got downstairs we met a glowing Lily Evans.
"Hi girls! Did you hear about the Midnight Masquerade?"
"Yeah." We said, smiling. Her energy was impossibly catching.
"It's going to be so much fun!" And, surprisingly, I believed her.
That is, until we got down to breakfast and Alice and Kim started talking about dates.
-
Alice and Jeremy were going together of course. It had been two weeks since their little tiff, and they were in for the long haul, already having lasted a record two months. The record was for both of them, previous relationships lasting only weeks.
Kim was listing her new crushes: all three in order from most to least appealing and debating their merits and flaws as potential dates with Alice. She had moved on the 'screw you' phase of her Alan relationship and was no longer speaking with him. Ha ha. He could beg for her now and get na-da.
"How about you Jen? Who are you going to ask?"
"Me?" I was so flustered I couldn't even pin-point who had asked me. "Um, I'm not really planning on asking anyone. There just isn't anyone I'm interested in." Blatant lie.
My two best friends smiled at me knowingly.
"Su-ure." Said Kim.
"What?" I rebutted, hoping it wasn't that obvious.
"Don't tell me you haven't been eyeing a certain bad boy in sixth year?" Oh Merlin it was that obvious.
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Really?"
"Really."
"So you haven't been fantasizing about Sirius Black at all?"
"No!" My jaw dropped, and I started to giggle, relieved, "No way!"
"We noticed you were glancing over at his group every now and then. Then looking away and blushing, then looking back. Come on Jen, he is hot." The last comment, I feel bound to point out, came from Kim. You're welcome Jeremy.
"It's not…" I sighed, debating internally. Too tell them or not to? Once you told Kim anything it pretty much became public knowledge. I hadn't even spoken to Remus very much. Okay, try, like, at all. But when I saw him… Okay, so it was down to this: let this thing out that I've been nonstop obsessing over and risk public humiliation or let it continue to consume my innards. I decided. "It's not…Sirius."
"James?" Alice asked. I shook my head no, everyone knew he was taken, even if unofficially.
"Oh Merlin, it's Peter!" Kim shrieked with laughter, and more than a few heads turned our way.
"No, you bloody idiot," but I was laughing too, "He's all yours. It's," I sobered, "it's Remus."
"Really? Remus?" Asked Alice.
"Really. Why?"
"I don't know, it's just he seems so…"
"Morose?" Kim filled in. "You always sort of went for the cocky type. No offense. But the dance is in just over two weeks. Better buck up your courage and ask him today. He'll be gone before long."
"I can't possibly!" I moaned, this being one of the areas where I lacked the famous Gryfindor courage, "It would be too humiliating."
-
"Sweetheart," Alice caught my arm as we left the breakfast table. "You're going to ask Lupin to the dance. Today."
"Nu-uh, no way."
Alice looked over her shoulder and I followed her eyes, she was focused on Kim, laughing with a potential date and his friends.
"Oh yes you are, because he'll know how you feel by tonight anyway. You know I love Kim to death, we both do, but she couldn't keep a secret if her life depended on it. If you don't ask him, well, he'll find out anyway."
That was, unfortunately, solid logic. I bit my lip. It was time to take the plunge.
-
Risk management. It's part of life, a part which middle aged men often feel the need to lecture both you and each other about. My father did it, his father did it, and I'm sure his father's father did it. It's all about possible losses vs. possible gains. Unfortunately, as I sat in the library waiting for Remus Lupin (alarmingly I knew that it was somewhere he often frequented Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, I think in a break between classes…It was official: this was pathetic. Not verging on pathetic, just pathetic), all I could think was it was all true.
Possible losses of asking Remus out: total humiliation, failure starring me in the face, knowing I wasn't good enough. Possible gains: date to dance, total bliss, boy of my dreams. Now it just had to do the odds, figuring out which outcome was more likely and let that bias my decision. Sadly, I had no idea how to calculate these odds. I was just starting to figure it out / make up some random point system in my head, when he walked up to my table. I hadn't even notice he came in.
"Let's take a walk Jen."
The minutes passed in awkward silence as Remus walked me out to the lake. Finally, we sat down in the shade of a giant oak tree and watched the giant squid flick its tentacles lazily over the water. I felt as I so often did these days—confused.
"So, giant squids, huh?" I asked finally and he smiled at me. My heart fluttered.
"Yeah."
"So Jen—" He started at the same time as I began to blurt out my poorly rehearsed ask-out,
"Do you—" Luckily I didn't get very far.
"Er." He mumbled.
"You first." I insisted.
"I'm sure there's something you want to ask me." My eyes budged. He knew, he totally knew, and he was going to make me say it anyway? Without even hinting at what the response might be? "James and Sirius, they don't think it would be such a good idea, you knowing and all, but I suppose you've already got me all figured out."
"Um," His friends didn't approve? Was that what he was telling me? Great confidence booster. Besides, what had I done to them? "Um," I repeated stupidly, "I was just wondering if you had a…" I had to force myself to say it, "a date for the Midnight Masquerade yet?"
Now it was his turn to have budging eyes.
"What?"
"Nothing, I—forget it. It's stupid. We hardly know each other right? Just the occasion hi in the hallways. Maybe a conversation in passing. I'm sure you're not interested. Sorry I asked. We can totally forget this ever happened. As a matter of fact, let's do that. The forgetting this ever happened thing."
"I," he seemed at a loss for words, "you really don't know?"
Know what? I wanted to ask.
"You can't," he was talking more to himself than me now, "you wouldn't ask if you did."
"You have a girlfriend?" I guessed, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't know. How embarrassing." It was too.
"No I—"
"You're not interested."
"Well, it's just—"
"That's okay," I rushed on, "we can still be friends right? It's won't be too uncomfortable?" Why didn't the ground ever swallow me up when I wanted it too? Why? Why? Why was I so socially inept? Well, to be fair it was only ever this bad around Remus. So maybe it was good that nothing was going to come of this. Less time for me to look like a blundering idiot right?
"I'd like to go. I just can't." He said finally, "I'd like to really. It's just…"
"Right," I said after a sufficient pause, "Okay. I'll just be going before the humiliation thing gets any worse and my babbling continues on and on and—oh, I'm doing it now. Bye then. See you around."
And I stood up, slightly dizzy with disappointment and humiliation, and with every intention of heading back to me room to mope. I had only gone a few steps when I ran headlong into the chest of another boy.
"Janet Wilson," said a deep masculine voice, "will you go to the Midnight Masquerade with me?"
"Yes," I said, before even looking up, silently thanking my savor, not caring who it was. All I could think of was 'look Remus, someone wants to go with me!' Pitiful? Yes.
Then I looked into the young man's face and nearly fainted.
"Jake!?"
-
A/N: This chapter goes out to Lift the Wings—who is 2 out of my four reviews and is awesome. Haha, but I love you all!