CHAPTER 07

"He is fit, and you're lying if you say otherwise."

"Mary," chided Piper, furrowing her brow. "That's ridiculous. How would you feel if you were boiled down to your appearance?"

"Quite good about myself, honestly," was her reply, and she pressed another dress against herself in the crooked mirror, her eyes grazing over her reflection. She grinned. "This is it. This is the one!"

"You've said that about these four, too," Lily reminded her, exhaustedly lifting the pile of gowns in her arms as if Mary couldn't see them. "Make up your mind, Maccy. My arms've given out—I can't feel them anymore."

"I don't see what you lads do in Rhys," Marlene put in, as usual ignoring every aspect of conversations except for the bits that interest her. She had draped over her forearm a class act of a silk dress, shimmery and black and just the kind of thing Marlene would have killed in. Not Piper, of course. But she never thought she could have "killed in" anything.

The girls kept insisting otherwise, telling her that every dress she put on was a stunner or that she just had to choose that one like her life depended on it. But that was their job: Piper had learned that girls had similar tendencies to lift each other up, even if the dress they tried on wasn't the right shade of pink for their skin tone or the shape didn't flatter them. So really, Piper thought, if they were just going to tell her she looked beautiful in anything, why should she believe them when she tried anything on in the first place?

It was a frustrating conundrum, especially as Piper had burned through what felt like the entire inventory of the dress shop Gladrags in Hogsmeade; each dress she had tried on didn't truly strike her as "her", much to the disagreement of the repetitive chorus of oohs and ahhs from her friends. Their support had been nice the first go around, but Piper hadn't landed on a dress for the ball yet, and she was growing sick of her friends acting like every single dress she tried was made for her.

So she'd taken a seat in the velveteen waiting chairs set up in the center of all the changing rooms for a breather. Lily was with her, as she'd had her dress picked out for ages—a pink number, not much unlike the silky satin of Marlene's new choice. But Marlene was never one to make up her mind easy, so she'd just ducked back into her fitting room with a deep green version of the dress she'd already decided on.

Piper sighed. "I don't see it, either, Marlene," she replied. "About Rhys, I mean. He's kind and all.. Just not my type, I suppose."

"Your type isn't the ruggedly handsome," came Mary's disbelieving voice from behind her curtain. She wrenched the thing open easily, revealing the newest gown she'd deemed "the one". "What do we think?"

Lily raked her eyes down the dress, nodding. "Certainly a good colour on you. Though so were these four," she added, hefting the dresses in her arms up again to add to her point.

"I think that silvery one there would look right on Piper," Mary decided, a finger to her lips in thought. "Though maybe not with the same shoes I'd been picturing..."

Lily turned to Piper with a feigned exhaustion in her eyes, extending the bottommost dress in her arms out as a peace offering. "Willing?"

Piper exhaled a sigh of matching fatigue and took the dress without word, heaving herself out of her comfortable velvet seat and taking once again to the fitting room—her mirror was cracked down the middle, just to add salt to the wound, of course. Through the thin curtain, she could hear her companions take up the daunting conversation topic of dates—phew. She'd only barely managed to escape that one in time. Chatting about whom each of them would be going to the ball alongside was not only uninteresting to Piper but also entirely negating to her whole attitude about the dance anyway—dates were required, as a matter of formality, but Piper had happily decided to overlook the fact for as long as she possibly could. Now, with the ball encroaching, she was running out of time to continue ignoring it.

Oh, well. Perhaps she wouldn't be able to go at all. What a shame that would be.

It was as she was attempting to tug up the caught zipper on the back of her gown that she heard the first mention of James from one of the girls—but Mary or Marlene, she couldn't pinpoint. The two had similar voices, Piper always thought, and trying to name them blindly was near impossible.

Mary or Marlene—whomever it was—directed her question to Lily. Piper only caught the tail end of it because the name that filled a majority of her mind had been mentioned offhandedly, and trying to ignore one's entire thoughts was proving incredibly difficult, Piper had come to learn.

"...James's asked you yet," the accusation was. Piper wasn't sure what the beginning of the sentence had been, but she was positive it hadn't been directed at her, so she paused in trying to latch up her gown and instead focused in on the conversation she'd only moments ago been so excited to not be apart of.

"He hasn't," Lily confirmed, and her tone of voice gave no indication to Piper of how she felt about that fact. "Why 'yet'? Do you know something I don't?"

Mary scoffed—Piper could tell it was her because she was back in her fitting room now, right next to Piper's. "Only wondering. I know he was thinking of it. And Sirius mentioned something about four of us and four of them, except Pete's taking his girlfriend, so I wasn't sure where Sirius was going with that idea..."

Again, Piper droned out the voices from outside her fitting room. She faced her reflection in the mirror with a curious sort of glance, giving it the thought—were you aware of this? Obviously, the face in the mirror didn't reply, and Piper was stuck in a tiny little room with a dress that she never finished zipping up fallen half off her shoulders. Lily called to her and asked if she was about ready to come out yet, but Piper didn't know the answer to that.

She was unsure of anything now, with that pestering thought of James wanting to ask Lily to the ball on the back of her mind. No, not the back—very obviously it was stuck at the forefront of her thoughts, suffocating anything up there in that head of hers that wasn't a mention of James or a question of whether he was really planning to take Lily to the ball. Wherever Mary had heard the rumor from, Piper could obviously never have been sure, but something told her it wasn't just a rumor—after all, Marlene was the one who spread those, not Mary. If Mary was thinking such a thing—that James was wanting to ask Lily to the ball—then who was Piper to accuse her of making it up?

Then again, she wondered to herself, lost in her own reflection, why should she care? She'd already been done with James, like she'd decided that week ago—really, all those years tossed to the side and thought of only when she was directly in front of him, that had been enough to shrink her ego to the size of a pea. But now, this year in particular, for whatever reason, had not only shrunk her confidence another two sizes, but crushed it with its heel, too. Smashed her down flat on her own heart, popping the beating love inside it like a balloon.

Her reflection became all too true, Piper realised, too: a flickering candle casting shadows over her dejected sort of face, a half-zipped gown listing off her pale shoulder like a too-big shield of armour, one of her fingers twisted in a thick curl of auburn hair. She wasn't sure if the cracked mirror was distorting her reflection, or if she truly looked as horrible as she felt on the inside.

For whatever reason, this was the moment Piper truly found herself serious about giving up on James: Standing in a Gladrags fitting room, staring at an image of herself that was just so pathetic that she had to laugh. It bubbled up inside her out of pure disbelief at how miserable she looked—like a kicked puppy, or a house elf.

This was what James Potter had been doing to her all along? Making her shrink into herself and become this shell of a girl, this shattered reflection that was staring back at her?

How had she never taken notice of it before?

"Merlin," she whispered to herself, snapping out of her gaze. She leaned into the mirror to get a better look. "I'm so... stupid."

Shame enveloped her, then all-consuming anger—how long had she looked like this? How often did she stare at James the same way she'd just caught herself staring at her own reflection?

Worst of all—how long would it have gone on, if she hadn't smacked herself in the face with it when she did?

She shivered to think of the answer to that, and shrugged off the gown, deciding she could charm it to fit her just right. This was the dress for her.

It's later that night that James would be garnering up all his confidence in one go, staring back at his reflection not unlike Piper had been doing only hours ago. He even gelled back his hair with his father's own concoction, wondering, hey, maybe if this thing was worth the millions of pounds it earned his father, it was worth a go at James's unruly locks. (It wasn't—nothing could tame that head of his. But he could still try.)

He'd had the plan out for ages. Not out out—not out with his lads, of course, because they'd take the idea and run with it (see also: ruin it), but out in his mind. Out in letters to his mum and dad, who were beyond delighted to hear the news, who had to sit on their own hands to not tell Willaby and Charlus each time they ran into them at the grocer.

It was all leading up to what seemed to anyone else to be such an insubstantial night—what seemed to anyone else to be a random Thursday evening, probably utilized for studying or revising or finishing homework that was already past due. Or maybe that was just James—he had boatloads of schoolwork to do, hanging over his head like a storm cloud, but for some reason he wasn't feeling the same anxiety over it he always did.

See, usually James was on top of his academics. After all, you don't exactly make it to Head Boy position without caring at least a little about your grades. But recently—ever since he'd come up with the idea, really—he'd let his work slip ahead him until it was so far gone he couldn't even see the beginning of it.

This was unheard of for James Potter. But it could all be dealt with after tonight—he just needed to get his plan in motion.

And it all rode on the giant squid.

A horrible thing to pin all of his hopes and dreams on, and he recognised that, but, hey, he was just so positive it was going to work. Things never went wrong for James Potter.

He started with alerting Remus—the only other person in the dorm that evening—that he'd be out on the pitch if anyone was looking for him. But—hah!—thus was the lie. Sirius was the Marauder soaring around the Quidditch pitch, drilling his new members on all things Chaser. But James had told Sirius that he would be in the library studying—another ploy. Peter was the Marauder in the library, revising with his girlfriend. The three of them were all on opposite sides of the castle, and by the time any of them reached the others, James would already be finished with his execution.

The Marauders had been out-got. By their own leader, no less. James was nearly giddy with pride.

At seven forty-two, he hopped off of his bed, after a long stretch of time pretending he was doing homework when in actuality he was staring at a blank parchment and listening to the clock tick steadily over his bed. He wished Remus a good evening—probably pushing it, if he had to admit—and ducked down the stairs into the common room.

The invisibility cloak was likely overkill, in retrospect. Literally—overkill. Maybe if he had been visible, he'd've gotten off easier.

He slunk into the common room as silently as he could, using the carpeted floor to his advantage, his footfalls cushioned and slow. It was perfect timing, and he cheered himself for this—everyone was either at supper or already in their dorms for the evening. He hardly even needed the cloak.

But it was just as he was lifting a hand to slink it off his body that the portrait tunnel swung open, and in clambered the chattering figures of the four people he had plotted to see—just not this early.

For a second, he panicked. He hadn't accounted for the four girls to return from their dress shopping so soon. The plan was to meet them on their way back from Hogsmeade, just as they were crossing the bridge over the Black Lake, with the golden and red leaves crunched into the cobblestone around them, just like she liked them—

But here they were. Not on the bridge over the Black Lake. Not on their way back from Hogsmeade. Nothing was according to plan.

James panicked. Then he remembered—thinking on his toes was what he was best at.

In hindsight, it was spying. That was what he was doing. And it served him right when he got what was coming to him, anyway, so he doesn't need anyone else to tell him off for it, thank you very much.

The girls were giggling amongst themselves, though only one of them was pink-cheeked from the chill in the outside air. James frowned. How severely had he miscalculated their return?

"I can't believe it," Mary insisted, in the tone of voice that made James think she'd already voiced her disbelief multiple times before. She collapsed in a cushion chair and hung her head back toward the ceiling, a grin on her face. "Really. We were just talking about him, too, this afternoon..."

"It's like Merlin heard us," Marlene agreed with a laugh, kicking her legs up onto the coffee table and leaning back on the ruby couch. She shot Piper a curiously teasing glance. "What d'you think he's gonna wear, Pipes? Maybe all-black dress robes?"

"Why does it matter to you?" Lily asked Marlene, and she, too, was beaming. "You're gay as the day is long, McKinnon."

Marlene shrugged, shaking with laughter. "I know I said otherwise earlier, but that really is a fit wizard, as fit as they come."

James lifted his chin. They simply had to be talking about him.

"All of you must calm down," Piper insisted, and her cheeks still glowed pink. She was staring deep into the fireplace, clearly lost in her mind. "It isn't like that."

Mary scoffed. "Please. After yesterday, when he picked you up from the breakfast table and you spent the whole day together... I had a feeling. I did."

James's smile was beginning to fall. Slowly it started to dawn on him that it wasn't James they were talking about at all—it was that Corner boy. The Ravenclaw that had stolen Piper from the Gryffindors yesterday at breakfast.

All at once, James's blood ran cold. Surely Corner hadn't...

"This is perfect," Lily decided with a grin. "Piper, you can wear the silver gown. It would look divine with his skin tone and your eyes. Oh, couldn't you melt, Mary?"

"You could," Mary agreed with a sigh.

Piper couldn't stop laughing. "All of you are being dramatic. He's only asked me to the ball because—"

"Don't ruin our imaginations," Lily said warningly. "I could only dream of such a bloke asking me out."

But James hardly heard Lily anymore, or anything else the girls were saying, at that.

Rhys Corner had asked Piper to the ball. And she had said yes.

James's ears were ringing with something that he felt in his chest. He couldn't bring his feet to move, either, sort of trapped in that spot; invisible and aching, drowning in a feeling he hadn't even known he could have. He never realised how strongly he felt, anyway, and he thought it was sort of a shame he was only now recognising it.

What a waste, he thought. Such big emotions toward a girl who probably never once felt the same way for him.

Still silent, still invisible, still pining, James trudged himself back up the spiral staircase to his dormitory, a thousand thoughts running rampant through his mind all at once. His plan was ruined, of course. And he had to find another date to the ball. And he just couldn't understand why that hurt him so bad.

The squid didn't sing his and Piper's song, anyway. Maybe it was for a best he never executed the plan riding on a squid that was charmed to sing randomized songs at randomized times throughout the day, anyway.

VIA CHATTER LALALA

here we are i dont know what to say here a lot was just revealed in this chapter although its quite short i'm sorry #nerfed