Fourth Year

A blonde brigade of Beauxbatons glided by in their robin`s egg blue uniforms, giggling, and almost everyone in the vicinity turned to watch them pass.

"Eh. I bet they`ve all got dates to the Yule Ball." Katie said, rolling her eyes.

"You`d think." Rachel slammed her book shut, making a Beauxbatons boy sitting several seats down jump. "Sorry." She whispered.

"What`s wrong?" Katie asked, slightly raising one eyebrow.

"Nothing. Sometimes those girls can be a bit much."

"I totally agree." said Hermione, lifting her head from her book. "I came here to get some peace and quiet, and of course Victor Krum comes and brings a gaggle of loud girls in his wake, and I can`t get anything done!" She packed up her papers.

"Where are you going?" Rachel asked raising her eyebrows.

"I`m going out to the lake, or the Astronomy tower, or even the dungeons, whichever`s quietest and has the least abundance of them." She gave a pointed look towards the loud library-crashers.

"Good luck." Katie replied.

"I`ve never seen her so angry about something so trivial."

"Well, the stress is getting to us all. By the way, has he asked you to the Yule Ball yet?" Katie poked Rachel`s arm playfully. Katie, although she was a year older that Rachel, was easily Rachel`s third best friend, after Lydia and Seamus but before Dean (Sisters can totally count as friends. Rachel hated when people told her otherwise), and she was the only one who Rachel daily talked to about things like boys. Actually, it was mainly just one boy in particular.

Rachel looked around quickly to see if anybody had heard. She felt her face started to turn red. "Shhhhh!"

"Sorry. So, has he asked you or what?"

"Not yet," Whispered Rachel conspiratorially, "Although he and Dean were talking about something together in hushed voices as I was walking into breakfast this morning. They stopped before I got close enough to hear what they were talking about. I`m not sure," Rachel turned slightly more pink and lowered her voice even more, "But I think he`s going to ask me before the end of the week."

"Well he`d better hurry up, the ball`s only a couple days away!" Katie declared, eyes wide.

Behind them, on the other side of the bookshelf, Lydia was pinned against the books, kissing her thirty-second boyfriend, Terry Flynn. She had heard everything that had gone on behind her on the other side of the shelf. Rachel wasn`t a good whisperer.

Lydia opened her eyes and looked over Terry`s shoulder to see her sister and her sister`s friend leaving the library. Rachel didn`t see Lydia due to Terry.

Lydia thought about the bet she`d made almost a year before. Lydia was sure Rachel was going to win the bet within the week. Unfortunately, Lydia didn`t dare break up with Terry now to move on to number thirty-three, because it was too close to the ball to get a good guy. All the superior options were claimed by now.

Lydia hated to lose bets, even to Rachel. Lydia`d never lost before, and her competitive drive was there to make sure it stayed that way.

"Seamus?" Seamus looked up from his potions essay to see his favorite combination of blonde hair, blue eyes, and big genuine smile coming into the common room. "Dean told me you wanted to talk to me."

"Yeah," He said nervously, hesitating. Dean had told him to act natural, because it was just Rachel after all. But when Seamus looked into her dazzling blue eyes, he just couldn't seam form words to properly say what he wanted. "Rachel. Umm..."

She plopped down on the couch right next to him. He casually (translation: nervously) brushed his hair back. Then, he took a deep breath and went for it.

"So you`re my best friend an' I don't` want this to ruin our friendship but I really want to tell you that I`ve kinda fancied you for a while now an' I was really hoping that you`d-"

Seamus couldn`t form words again, but this time for an entirely different reason. Half way through his (terrible) pre-rehearsed question, she`d leaned over and kissed him. And she was still kissing him, actually. Seamus closed his eyes, and relaxed, trying to not freak out over the fact that Rachel was kissing him. Rachel, his best friend, and it was his first kiss. Seamus couldn`t relax. Was kissing supposed to be this…scary? Shocking? She seemed different somehow from the friend he knew when they were kissing.

Finally, when we pulled apart, she smiled and said, "I`m so glad you told me."

"So, does this mean that you`ll go to the ball with me?"

She smiled sweetly. "I`d love to… but someone already asked me, and I said yes." Seamus` eyes widened.

"Who?" He managed to sputter.

Just then, Dean walked into the common room. Seamus looked back at Rachel and saw she was gazing at Dean with the same expression she`d had earlier, right before she`d kissed Seamus.

"Dean!" Rachel jumped up and ran over to Dean and wrapped her arms around him. "I`m so glad we got to talk earlier." She raised her eyebrows.

"Hey, yeah, you`re welcome Rach." She giggled and kissed him.

Seamus turned away, unable to breathe. He ran up the stairs to his dorm room, feet pounding on the steps, fists clenched. He couldn`t believe Dean had manipulated him all this time. Rachel hadn`t like him after all, it was Dean after all this time. Seamus plumped face first onto his bed, deceived, outraged, and now a third wheel to his two best friends.

"What was that?" Seamus heard Dean`s voice from behind him. Seamus rolled over to glare at him.

"You tell me."

"I don`t know!" Dean said, gesturing wildly.

"How could you not know? It was your idea!" Seamus yelled, accidently flicking his wand towards Ron`s bed and lighting the bed sheets on fire. Neither of them were surprised, because of Seamus` tendency to do this (at least once a week), and Seamus put it out quickly with a familiar spell and repaired the sheets before storming out of the room.

"Hey guys." Rachel said, plopping down at her usual spot at the Gryffindor table, between Dean and Seamus. Neither of them looked up from their scrambled eggs.

Seamus picked up his plate. "I`ll leave you two alone. I don`t want to be a third wheel here." He moved down a few seats, next to Ron and Lavender.

"What is he talking about? Is there something wrong?"

"Hello? Dean? Dean!" Rachel snapped her fingers in front of his face. Down the table a bit, Lavender was squealing.

"If you weren't a girl, I`d punch you." Dean muttered.

"What? Why? Have you been Imperiused?"

"Have you?" Dean said, turning to me and looking straight into my eyes. His eyes were red, as if he hadn`t slept at all last night. "Why did you kiss me last night?"

"What?!" I laughed, "Is this some sort of joke?"

"Remember, in the common room, in front of Seamus? At about ten in the evening?"

"I was up in my dorm reading around ten. Just ask Hermione or Parvati."

"No, I saw you. When I came back to the common room from the library, you were sitting on the couch with Seamus, and then you got up, put your arms around me, told me you were glad we`d talked, and then kissed me. Seamus stormed out, I asked you what potions you were on, you stormed out, and I went after Seamus."

I started laughing. "Interesting dream. What potions are you on?"

"It`s real, Rach, I`m serious. That`s why Seamus is so mad at us."

"Us? That wasn`t me!" Rachel practically yelled.

"Then who was it?" Rachel fell silent. Who could it have been? Rachel looked around the room, and it dawned upon her who the perfect impersonator could have been. She glanced over at the Slytherin table. But why would she do something like that?

Unfortunately, there was only on girl who could have played her so well, which meant that for whatever reason, it had to be true. Rachel put her head in her hands and exhaled loudly. She was no longer hungry for scrambled eggs.

"What? Who was it?"

"Lydia, Dean. You kissed my sister." His eyes widened. Speechless.

Rachel walked out, leaving Dean, Seamus, her sister, her eggs, and her pride behind.

Before the Yule Ball, Katie had French braided her hair and reassured her that it wouldn`t be so bad. But she was horribly wrong. Rachel occasionally danced with Hermione or Katie, and when she wasn`t, she was looking around at all the happy couples dancing around her. Katie and Lane, Hermione and Krum, Dean and Brenna, Lydia and Terry, and (worst of all) Seamus and Lavender. After a while, when she thought she was about to break out in tears, she decided to leave early to save the last shred of dignity she had left.

Lydia was having the night of her life. She was dancing with Dan, number thirty-three, victorious. She was feeling guilty that she`d kissed Seamus to win the bet, but Rachel could do sooo much better than him. Across the room, she saw Rachel get up and head to the door.

Lydia felt a pang of sadness for her sister, but she knew that if she went over there right now she`d only make it worse. Rachel would get over it. Lydia always did. He was just another boy.

Seamus looked over Lavender`s shoulder at Rachel, watching her leave. She looked like a ghost in her silvery-gray dress as she walked out, looking back once but not at him.

"I`m going to get us some punch." He told Lavender. He made sure to walk past Dean.

"So you decided not to go with her after all of that?" Seamus said, layering every word with attitude.

"Mate, she was never going with me." Dean said, his face solemn.

"Oh really? It didn`t look that way the other day."

Dean took a deep breath. "Rachel was up in her dorm reading the whole night."

Seamus rolled his eyes.

"It was Lydia who was in the common room. She was, I don`t know what she was trying to do, but whatever it was, I think it worked. Rachel`s miserable, and I swear I didn`t and wouldn`t do that to you. Lydia played us, turned us against each other."

"Right." Seamus said, rolling his eyes. He walked off to the punch table.

When he came back to Lavender with their drinks, she giggled and said, "Thanks."

"What?" He said, raising an eyebrow.

"Nothing, it`s just…I didn`t think you were going to ask me to the ball."

"What made you think that?"

"Oh, nothing. Just something Rachel said Wednesday night when we were talking in the dorms."

"Wednesday?" His eyes widened. Wednesday was the night he`d got his heart ripped out by her. "What time was this, about?"

She gave him a questioning look. "Tenish, I think. Why?"

Seamus dropped his punch. "I have to go. I`m sorry." He turned and looked at Lavender sorrowfully. "I`ve made a big mistake."

"Go ahead." She said sadly.

He rushed out of the Great Hall.

When Seamus ran into the common room, Rachel wasn`t there, so he asked a first year girl to check up in her dorm, but she wasn`t there either. He searched practically the whole school before he found her sitting alone on a dark window seat in the library. Her silver headband shone in the moonlight.

He sat across from her on the seat. She didn`t move.

"I`m sorry. I was an idiot. She tricked me, and I was too stupid to see the truth."

"I was going to ask you to the ball, you know. I asked her, thinking she was you. She…"

"Dean told me that she kissed him and you stormed out." Rachel said finally.

"Yeah, you-I mean she-broke…" He stopped.

"I`ve liked you for a really long time, El. I didn`t even realize just how much until I thought I saw you kissing Dean and… well, it broke my heart."

"Just like you broke mine." Rachel said, finally turning towards him, her blue eyes swimming with tears.

"Let`s promise never to do that again." He said.

"Okay."

He leaned closer and whispered something into her ear, and she smiled.

Seamus stood up and offered her his hand. "Would you like to dance?"

"Sure."

The two stood there dancing in the moonlight to the faint music from the ball above, eyes close, until Rachel suggested they go back to the ball.

The next morning, Lydia woke up to an uncomfortable jabbing in her back. Upon further inspection, her roommates confirmed that there was twenty quid in change stuck to her back with some sort of jinx.