Johnny’s Girl

The final evening before the Christmas holiday had the Ravenclaw dormitory in a tizzy, along with probably every other house’s dormitory. People were packing, others were getting ready for the parties that seemed to be happening all over, and everyone seemed to have their nerves stretched.

Not Tink, of course. She was calmly standing in front of the mirror next to her bed, curling her hair with her wand. Hazel was cross-legged on her bed next to Tink, still dressed in her school robes. Tink was already wearing one of the mini-dresses she favored for parties, in a dusky rose that looked very soft and romantic. In deference to the holiday, her earrings were tiny silver Christmas baubles. She looked very pretty. Lucas was really going to appreciate how short that dress was, Hazel thought with amusement.

“Do you know, I was talking to Christina Turner earlier, and she said this month’s magazine has been their most popular edition they’ve ever published,” she said, making herself comfortable on her bed while she watched her best friend getting ready for the evening’s party. “Usually they just print fifty and have a few left over, but they printed twice that and still had to go into a second printing. She was so chuffed.”

“It’s because of Johnny’s story,” Tink said wisely. “Have you read it? It’s so good. I can’t wait for the next chapter to come out.”

“I read it before he gave it to the literary club,” Hazel admitted.

“Oh, of course you did.” Tink looked amused. “Did he tell you what’s going to happen next? I want spoilers.”

“No, but he said he’d let me read it before anyone else did.”

Tink stopped curling her hair and turned to stare at her, both eyebrows raised.

Hazel gave her a look. “What?”

Tink’s expression clearly said that Hazel was missing something, but she only shook her head and went back to styling her hair, shaking her wand sharply to reactivate the spell.

“What are you wearing to the Gryffindor party?” she asked, wrapping another strand of hair around her wand.

“I’m not going.”

“Yes, you are,” said Tink matter-of-factly. “You can borrow a cute top from me and wear it with those green stretchy trousers you have that you never wear. They look great on your bum.”

The thought of going to the Gryffindor party made her anxious, like stage fright. She wanted to hide in her room with a book instead. Johnny wanted her to go, but she was nervous of even the thought of being there. Too many loud people doing things she didn’t have much experience at, and she’d feel awkward and on display. Hazel hated feeling on display. “What am I going to do at a party? You’ll just ditch me for Lucas as soon as we get there, and I’ll have no one to talk to.”

“Well, Johnny will be there, so you can talk to him. You won’t be alone.”

Hazel gazed at her suspiciously. There had been something in Tink’s voice, an undercurrent beneath her usual cheerful tone.

“He’s your friend, isn’t he?” Tink went on. “Parties are for hanging out with your friends.”

“Then you’d better hang out with me at least part of the time,” Hazel retorted. “You’re supposed to be my best friend.”

“I am your best friend. That’s why I want you to come to the party. I think you’ll have a good time.” Tink smiled. “Have a drink and relax, listen to music, enjoy yourself. Maybe even do a little dancing.”

“Oh, all right,” Hazel grumbled. “But I’m not doing any dancing. What should I wear with the green trousers?”

Tink’s smile turned devious. “I have the perfect top to go with them.”

*

Johnny had been in mid-story to a crowd of fourth-years at the Christmas party in Gryffindor Tower when his sister grabbed his arm and pulled him aside. His audience looked crestfallen at being interrupted before he’d even got to the good bits of the story.

The party had started an hour ago, and it was in full swing at this point. Johnny had already had two drinks, chatted with nearly everyone in the room at least for a minute or two, and flirted a bit with Dora’s friends until she’d called him a twat and dragged them away. He was half-expecting her to yell at him again about that, though she knew he wasn’t interested in either Angela or Cliodna and only flirted with them to annoy his sister.

Instead, she yelled at him about something completely different.

“Why is your girl over there by herself?” Dora demanded, pointing to the opposite side of the room and scowling at him.

“She’s not my girl,” Johnny said automatically, but he craned his neck to see her. “Why is Hazel over by herself like that?”

Dora rolled her eyes at him. “She’s not an extroverted maniac like you are, of course she’s by herself. You really are the world’s biggest donut. Did you even know she was here tonight? Too busy telling stories to your fan club to notice.”

Johnny frowned at his sister. “Don’t be stupid. I’ll go fetch her.”

“Whatever. I’m going to see if there’s still any butterbeer left.” Dora made a rude hand gesture at him and set off into the crowd.

Johnny snaked his way through the crowded room to get to Hazel. She saw him coming and crossed her arms over her chest defensively, but she still looked a little lost, sitting in the chair alone on the edge of the party.

He dropped to a crouch in front of her, balancing on the balls of his feet with his arms braced on his thighs. “All right, Hazel? Why are you over here all alone?”

“Tink ditched me for Lucas,” she admitted. A delicate flush of pink rose on her cheeks.

“So you didn’t go talk to anyone else?” Why didn’t you come talk to me? “It’s a party. There’s a whole common room full of people you could talk to.”

She shrugged. “I don’t just go talk to random people. I’m not like you, remember?”

“I know you don’t want to be. But can I take you around? You can do some mingling with me. Take the night off as life coach and just be my friend.”

She looked uncomfortable at the idea of mingling with the crowd. “I don’t know…”

“There’s people here you know,” he reassured her. “And I’ll introduce you to anyone you don’t. And Dora’s wandering around somewhere in case you need someone to talk with about what a twat I am.”

Hazel’s lips curved in a small smile. “Oh, all right.”

He put a hand to her knee briefly as he stood, though he didn’t really need it for balance, and when he was on his feet again he held out a hand to her to help her up. She hesitated for just a moment, then let him boost her to her feet. He let go of her quickly once she was standing because of that little hesitation.

When she stood up, he had to try not to gape at her. He hadn’t really registered her clothes while she was sitting, but when she stood up he got a good look at Hazel’s party clothes. The trousers were some sort of stretchy green material, skintight and just a little shiny. He could feel his palms beginning to sweat.

Those were really tight trousers.

“I’ve never seen you wear those before,” he said impulsively, gesturing toward her legs in the shiny green trousers.

She looked up at him in surprise. “You don’t know my entire wardrobe.”

Evidently he did not, and he wondered what else she had that he hadn’t seen. “I would have remembered those. Come have a drink and say hi to some people. And then maybe dance with me.”

“I’m not dancing with you,” she retorted immediately.

The white top she had on was nearly as skintight as the trousers, with puffy little sleeves made of lace, and showed just a peek of cleavage. It was almost but not quite transparent enough to see the texture of her bra beneath. Johnny was having a hard time not staring. Hazel owned tight clothes. And damn, she looked really good in them.

He was going to dance with her somehow.

He led her over to the table where the bottles of butterbeer were scattered rather haphazardly. There were still plenty of them, and someone had smuggled a bottle of rather cheap firewhiskey into the common room, which people were using to either juice up the butterbeer or add to a cola. Someone had brought plenty of those, and he was a little surprised when Hazel went for the whiskey and cola instead of the butterbeer.

Maybe she really was nervous.

She stuck to him like glue as he went around the common room to visit the various little cliques that always formed at parties like this. Cliques were never a problem for Johnny; he could join any of them and know that everyone here liked him. No one from Slytherin had come, and the handful of people at the school who didn’t like him all came from that house, except his sister. Most of the party-goers were Gryffindors, and a healthy smattering of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws.

Hazel was fairly quiet, watching her drink refill itself interestedly whenever she reached the bottom of the enchanted red cup and listening to him as he chatted with his friends around the common room. He wondered if she was gathering observations about him for the notebook she kept about him.

“If you keep drinking it, it’ll keep refilling,” he told her when she got to the bottom of the cup for the third time. He didn’t think she was much of a drinker, and he had no idea what the ratio of whiskey to soda pop was in that cup. There were two spots of color on her cheeks, the flush of alcohol making her eyes bright.

“That’s fine. It’s making me feel a little braver. You would be a good politician, you know,” she added. “You’re good at talking to people, and everyone always likes you.”

“Catastrophically charismatic,” he reminded her, and she let out a low giggle.

They were on the edge of the room, opposite of where the area in front of the fireplace had been cleared and the sofa pushed back for a dance area. Christmas tunes were blasting, a jazzy up-tempo number about hanging the lights. Tink had been dancing last time Johnny had looked over, but she and Lucas had disappeared now, probably to find an abandoned classroom somewhere.

“Come dance with me,” Johnny said, looking down at Hazel. “It’ll be fun.” He took the cup from her hands and set it on the windowsill next to them. There were already a few abandoned cups here, some crushed to break the charm so they’d stop refilling themselves.

“Oh, everyone’s going to look at me,” Hazel said breathlessly, but as he’d expected, she didn’t say no. Hazel didn’t back down from a challenge when she was sober, so he hadn’t expected tipsy Hazel to back down either.

“Nah. They’ll all look at me.”

She gave him an exasperated look. “But I’ll be with you so they’ll look at me too.”

“Hazel. Just try it. I promise, I’m a good dancer.”

“Of course you are,” she muttered. “All right, fine.”

She was a much better dancer than she’d given herself credit for. He swung her into the dance and watched her with a grin as she moved, light on her feet. She began to smile back at him, giving him a heady sense of accomplishment for making Hazel smile with giddiness, even if it might be partly because she was tipsy.

The next song was slower, and she let him pull her close and change to the slower tempo, one hand in his and the other on his shoulder.

“Are you having fun now?” he asked.

To his surprise, she let out a little giggle and clung to him a little tighter. She was definitely still tipsy. “I actually am.”

“You’re a good dancer,” he told her.

She went pink. “I am not.”

“Sure you are. You move like you know what you’re doing out here.”

“I took dance lessons when I was a little girl,” she admitted.

“Should’ve known it was baby ballet moves,” he joked, and she gave him a look of mock outrage and then giggled again.

“Stop being such a twat.” She let go of his hand to take a little swing at his arm. Somehow her swat at his bicep turned into her hanging onto him, both arms sliding around his neck now as she gazed up at him with those bright eyes, and he found himself bending toward her before he realized what he was doing and snapped out of it.

He’d almost tried to kiss her. She was so giggly and cute right now, and she looked very kissable. But if he kissed her, he didn’t think she would be his friend any more, and he very much wanted Hazel to keep being his friend.

Besides, she was tipsy.

Stop fancying your friend, you twat, he told himself sternly.

She let go of him, looking a little embarrassed. He smiled down at her, and then took her shoulders to steer her toward the table where the food was laid out.

“Come on, you’ve had enough to drink. Time to load up on some food, right?”

*

Hazel had spent most of the party too tipsy to remember to feel on display, but after she’d had a few glasses of water and a plate of food that Johnny brought her, she was sober and a little uncertain of herself.

Had she really put her arms around his neck and slow danced with him? That didn’t sound like something she wanted to do. Johnny was a huge twat. She didn’t want to know how it felt to slow dance with him while his hand was on her waist, careful not to creep any lower even when he could have got away with it because she’d been tipsy enough that she thought she would have let him.

Oh, bugger.

He was sitting at her feet, on the floor with a plate of food of his own in his lap, plowing his way through some miniature sausage rolls and a puddle of coronation chicken he was scooping up with crisps. As usual, his manners were abysmal, but somehow he hadn’t dropped any food on himself. If she ate like that, Hazel would have ruined the cute top she’d borrowed from Tink.

Not that Tink would know it, since she’d disappeared an hour ago with Lucas, no doubt off to do naughty things and talk about horses in an empty classroom.

Johnny had been eating quietly and only getting up to bring her more water, which told her he’d been more aware of how tipsy she’d been than she would have expected. It was strangely kind of him to make sure she was all right. It was like he’d found a little bubble of calm for the two of them to sit in, a single armchair upholstered in the Gryffindor coat of arms tucked away next to the window. Snow was swirling outside, and the position of the armchair in the little window alcove, flanked by red velvet curtains, muffled the sounds of the party just a bit. And to her surprise, because Johnny was sitting quietly on the floor, no one in the room seemed to be paying them any attention.

She never would have guessed he knew how to make himself unobtrusive.

“Want anything more?” Johnny asked as he shoved the last two sausage rolls in his mouth and set his plate aside. “I saw some Eccles cakes, and there’s probably some of those fruit tarts left.”

She didn’t think she could eat another bite, though she’d only had half what he’d eaten. “No, thank you.”

He took her plate and set it on his, brushing crumbs from his hands, and then shifted from the cross-legged position he’d been sitting in, drawing his knees up and wrapping his arms around them loosely as he leaned back against the stone wall. He always looked so comfortable, never awkward in his body, she thought idly. It must be lovely to always feel so confident, even if it was a little annoying for others.

Well, for her and for his sister, anyway. No one else ever found him annoying no matter what he did.

“What are your plans for the holiday?” he asked, looking up at her with a smile.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, a little surprised by the question. “Probably just hanging around my house. Maybe visit Tink for a day.”

“You should come round my house over the Christmas holiday,” he suggested. “My brother Artie’s birthday party is going to be right after Christmas, you can come along and hang out.”

“To your brother’s party?” She wasn’t sure what to make of that, but the invitation seemed innocent enough. Artie was one of his younger siblings, but she didn’t know where he fit in the lineup of Lupins. “How old will he be?”

“Six. Come keep me company. Mum has invited the entire family, so it’ll be overrun with little kids. Dora will be hiding in her room with one of her friends, I’d be stuck talking to Remus and the adults. They’re pretty boring.”

Hazel laughed despite herself. “God forbid you talk to adults. Won’t your relatives think it’s odd I’m there? They’re going to think I’m your girlfriend.”

“No they won’t. Anyway, I’ve got loads of cousins,” Johnny said breezily. “Honestly, nobody will notice that I brought a friend, there’ll be so many cousins. Someone will just assume you’re a Weasley they haven’t met yet.”

“Oh, you’re ridiculous.” She sighed in dismay at him, but she was still smiling. He really was funny at times.

“Ridiculous is better than a twat. Want to dance again or are you wanting to leave?”

She did want to dance with him again, which was a little worrisome. Taking the night off to be his friend felt a little like she’d forgotten what friends even meant. Probably better to go to bed at once. “I think I’ll just go back to Ravenclaw Tower and go to sleep. Have you already packed for the holiday?”

“Liam will pack for me in the morning,” he told her cheerfully. “I’ll walk you back.”

“You’re joking, right? About Liam.”

Johnny grinned widely. “He would do it, but yeah, I’m not going to make him pack for me. I’ll throw a few things in my rucksack in the morning. No big deal.”

Hazel smirked at him, feeling on firmer ground with a familiar subject to rib him about. “You have a rucksack? I’ve never seen it.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I don’t carry my textbooks around and never take notes. Come on, I’ll walk you back.”

Once again, when he got to his feet, he held out a hand to help her up. This time she felt a lot more aware of the heat of his hand, and the memory of that hand on her knee earlier, aware enough to make her heartrate pick up.

Oh, bugger, she thought worriedly.

They walked in companionable silence most of the way back to Ravenclaw Tower before Johnny spoke up.

“Wanna hear a story about my Uncle Louis?” he asked as they reached the top of the staircase up to the tower.

Hazel sighed. She’d been enjoying the quiet after the noise of the party, especially since Johnny was so rarely quiet, and had been thinking again about his hand on her knee earlier. “I don’t know, Johnny. Is it a new one? I already heard you tell about the time he was thrown in the Thames.”

“Yeah, that’s a good one,” Johnny said with a reminiscent smile. “This one is the time he was dating a Swiss witch and she took him to a nudist colony and he didn’t even realize that’s what it was for almost a fortnight, not until Magical Law Enforcement came to take him away.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Hazel chortled in spite of herself. “How on earth did he not notice for so long?”

Johnny was grinning. “Apparently he spent most of that time in her room tied to her bed while she did a few illegal things using his wand and his bank account.”

“Oh bugger.” Hazel clapped her hand over her mouth. She hadn’t heard this story before, because she definitely would have remembered if Johnny had talked about someone being tied to a bed.

He was still grinning at her reaction, and she turned an exasperated look on him.

“Why are you telling me this story?”

“Just to make you laugh.”

She was fairly sure he didn’t put a lot of thought into the things he did. He probably hadn’t planned it beyond getting a reaction out of her.

“I like making people laugh,” he added before she could form any new theories about his behavioral patterns. “Especially you.”

“Me?” she echoed in surprise. “Why me?”

“I like your smile,” he said cheerfully. “Catch you later, Hazel.”

She watched him stroll away, back to his own common room, and realized her face felt a bit hot.