Jay paced outside the kitchens corridor wringing his hands in nervous agitation. He was waiting for Katy to come out of wherever it was that the Hufflepuffs lived. He had wandered the castle a bit after supper looking to find another yellow and black clad student that would lead him to the common room and hopefully help him coax Katy out of it. Thankfully the raven haired fourth year he had managed to find seemed overtly excited with his quest and had no problem leading him down. She had left him by a portrait of a bowl of fruit then ducked into a shadowy corner. He had heard some hollow tapping in a tune he didn't recognize and then nothing. He was beginning to think he may have been tricked.

He would have just asked Katy in person to meet him but he hadn't seen her much over the last month and a bit. It wasn't so much that he was avoiding her. With midterms happening and the end of term approaching he had been spending more and more time studying and less time focusing on getting to chat with her. True, there was a part of him that was disturbed by the rumors going around the castle (which he had to admit traveled faster than they did at Beauxbatons Palace) When they first started all that came about was that she had been caught out after curfew with another boy. That had been enough to make Jay uncomfortable, he had no idea whether to believe them or not. She had seemed sincere about wanting to go to the Halloween Dance with him and he couldn't imagine her having lied to him about her mother dying, so why was she caught with another boy and what were they doing? Then the rumors took a turn for the worse and there were whispers of dark magic and Katy was being punished and barred from the Quidditch team. Jay couldn't make heads or tails of any of it but he knew he had to take the chance to talk to her, especially if he was going to pose the question he had actually come here to ask.

~*~

Ayla entered the fourth year girls dorm with a smirk looking around for a certain familiar brunette, she leaned on one of the four posters of Katy's bed, "Hey Katy, there's super gorgeous American boy outside looking for you. He asked if I could get you to go out and talk to him. I think he wants to ask you out or something."

Katy was just sitting on her bed, leaning back against the headboard with a book propped up on her knees when Ayla approached her.  A gorgeous American?  For a second she genuinely had no clue who the other girl could be talking about but then she realized that there was only one American boy who would be looking for her. Period. Although, he was gorgeous, so much so that even the socially inept like Katy could see it and appreciate it.

"Thank you Ayla," Katy murmured, closing her book.  She stared at the cover of it for a little while as she decided what to do about Jay. She felt guilty because she'd been avoiding him and everyone else in the school as much as possible for the past month or so.  Since Halloween... even though the specifics of what she and Sasha had been caught doing were never made public, there were a variety of reasons floating about that attempted to explain things.  The most common being, of course, that she and Sasha had been caught snogging.  She hexed anyone who dared to say that to her face though.  Which was when darker rumors started.

The truth was far worse than any of that and Katy was so sharply aware of it that she couldn't meet people's eyes lately without thinking about the darkness of that spell.  She was afraid that she'd been tainted by it.  Of all the people she knew and talked to, Jay was the one she wanted to taint the least.  She liked him too much to subject him to that.  But here he was now, asking for her.

With a heavy sigh, she placed her book on her bedside table, put her wand into her sleeve, and stood up.  She'd better go talk to him.  He'd come all the way down to the dungeons, after all.  Jay stood around the corner from the entrance to the Hufflepuff dorm, wringing his hands.  Once again she was swamped with guilt at having caused distress.  She hadn't realized that he'd notice her absence so badly.

She cleared her throat and stepped into the light.  "Um... Hi Jay." Katy murmured.  She wasn't sure what to say or what do so she just hung her head and waited for Jay to tell her what he wanted.

Jay started when he heard her voice, he wasn't expecting the noise in the silence that had followed the other girl's departure. He had almost convinced himself she wouldn't come out. He gave her a small smile which quickly faltered when he saw the sight of her. She was hanging her head but was in it shame? From guilt? Or annoyance? Did she not want to see him? She certainly didn't look too happy about it. For a moment he contemplated just walking away but the part of him that had grown attached to her was getting rather strong and it rooted him to the spot. He needed to know.

"Hey," He took a deep breath and figured since he had her out here, he might as well follow through with it all, "Look, I know it's none of my business, I mean it's not like I'm your boyfriend or anything but I just," He paused for a moment trying to find the right words, "I haven't really gotten a chance to talk to you since Halloween and there have been a lot of things going around the castle. I'm not usually the kind of guy to listen to rumors but I just can't avoid these ones."

He averted his eyes, not sure what he was going to see if she happened to look up at him, "I really, really did want you to come to the Halloween dance with me and I thought you wanted to go with me too. I know you said it was a secret and it would help you get closure with - everything that happened but I just," once again he struggled with the words he wanted to say afraid he had already said too much and done enough damage but if he didn't let it all out he was going to drive himself crazy.

"What I'm trying to say is, well, without sounding like a complete jealous ass, is he your boyfriend or something? Cause if you already have someone I can back off, I don't want to get you trouble or anything, I just need to know what happened with you two."

Fear welled up in her chest, swiftly and uncontrollably.  It burned in her chest and prompted tears to prick at her eyelids but nothing fell.  Instead, her breath began to come in short, harsh inhales and exhales.  Hyperventilation.  He mind knew that this was what she was doing as a result of panic but her mind was tripping over the rumors spreading around the castle about her and Sasha and Halloween Night.  There were so many, each of them less flattering than the one before.  Which one of them had taken Jay in?  How close were they to the truth?  Did he hate her, fear her?

Boyfriend?  Boyfriend!  Katy almost sagged with relief when she realized that that was the rumor he'd latched onto.  She smiled a bit but it was thin and tinged with sadness.  "Sasha is not my boyfriend," she replied vehemently.  She was actually a little put off by the mere suggestion.  He was attractive enough but he had demons, strong ones that Katy wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. 

She rushed forward and clenched her fingers into the fabric of Jay's sleeves.  "I should have just gone to the dance with you," she whispered harshly, looking into his eyes beseechingly.  "I wanted to but...I just had to do it.  I'm sorry."

He knew his priorities were a little mixed up but just the thought of Katy being involved with another boy was enough to make him ignore any whispers about dark magic. After all she was young, what kind of dark magic could she really have gotten into? He wiped it all from his mind when she clenched his shirts and he took a deep breath. The pleading in her eyes was almost painful to see and he knew she was being punished by others for whatever it was that had really happened that night. There was no longer any reason for him to hold it against her. Besides he had a shining opportunity to make it all up to her.

He placed his own hands over hers, loosening them from the front of her shirt. Without any word he leaned in and stole another little yet passionate kiss. When he straightened up there was a crimson tinge to his cheeks, "Don't worry about it. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't stepping on anyone else's toes."

He rubbed his thumbs along the back of her hands, "I just needed to get that out of the way so I could ask you the real question I've been trying to get out for a while now." He took another long breath and ran his fingers through her brunette curls, "Katy, would you, do you wanna, I mean if you don't already have plans, you think you'd come to the Yule Ball with me? . . . As my date?"

Katy was dazed and speechless in the wake of his passionate kiss.  Her brain could barely function afterwards and it was at once enticing and disquieting.  She'd never been kissed before Jay, never even looked at like that so all of this was incredibly new.  The quiver in her chest made her suspect that she enjoyed it, though, as unusual as the sensation was.  Her fingers curled around his hands in hers and that simple connection, maintained beyond the kiss helped steady her, although it did nothing to help clear the fuzz from her mind. 

So caught up in the tingles on her scalp caused by Jay's questing fingers, she barely caught the question he falteringly managed to ask.  Date?  The  Yule Ball.  Oh, of course, he was asking her ahead of time, making plans.  The bottom dropped out of her stomach.  Her privileges had been revoked.  She wasn't allowed out of the dormitory unless it was to go to the class, meals, or counseling.  Even standing out here in the hallway could be considered a gross violation of the terms of her punishment.  She certainly wasn't allowed to go to the ball.

"Yes," she blurted out.  "If course I will."  Her mind was already racing about how she could get around her punishment.  She could ask Counselor Biladeau for special permission to go.  Surely the soft-hearted woman would keen like a little girl if she heard Katy was attempting something so normal as going on a date.  Even if that didn't  work, if Sandusky refused to give her a brief reprieve, Katy would go anyway.  With no formal wear and a strict confinement, Katy would break all the rules and show up in her school uniform because dammit, she wanted to!

She lunged forward into a full hug and buried her face into the warmth of his chest.  "Nothing could stop me from going to the dance with you," she mumbled, although Jay would have no way of knowing just how much she meant it.

Warmth spread through his entire body at her emphatic exclamation. His cheeks were sore from how wide his smile had gotten and as she threw herself into his arms her wrapped his own tightly around her. This was definitely the best of the outcomes he had imagined while making his way down here. He had been nervous that she would say no, that the boy from the rumors had actually been her boyfriend. All of that tension and anxiety melted away as she hugged him. He didn't want to part from her but knew he needed to.

After what seemed like eternity he pulled her away, holding her hands as to not completely break the connection they had, "Alright well, that's awesome." The wide smile still spreading his cheeks, "Um well I guess I'll meet you here on the night of the ball, or outside the Great Hall, either way works for me, we can figure that out later anyways." He felt that he was rambling with excitement and a crimson tinge coloured his cheeks.

He ran a nervous hand over the back of his neck, "So um, I'll see you around then? I just, I got a lot of homework to do but yeah, I'll see you." He knew it was lame but his mind was fuzzy and warm from her accepting the date that he could hardly think about how much of an idiot he sounded. He leaned in and gave her another kiss, "I don't want you to get in trouble for being out of your dorm or anything so yeah, see you tomorrow."

There was almost a skip in his step as he turned to wind his way back through the castle to head out to the Beauxbatons quarters. It was true that he had a ton of homework to work on but he doubted he'd get any of it done. He was just too darn happy.