Fauna was curled up on one of the common room couches, sleeping. Her arm had fallen over the side so that her hand grazed the worn, plush carpet, and she might have let out a snore or two. Not that she’d ever admit it, of course. Something chased her in her dreams, changing forms like an overactive boggart. She saw the Headmistress with her spiky heels, Vienna with a broken clock in her hand, and then the cackling skulls from the Halloween decorations-

Fauna’s eyes popped open. Oh Merlin. The dance!

The art club was planning decorations, and on top of that she had to think about a date. Fauna shuddered. Despite Akiva’s reassurance that Devlin would be happy to go to the dance with her, she just didn’t believe it. Groaning, Fauna threw an arm over her eyes. If Ollie was here, she and Fauna would claim the best spot by the refreshment table and throw Bertie Botts at each other, but… Ollie wasn’t at Hogwarts anymore. And many of her friends had already paired up.

Fauna thought about asking Snark if Ollie could visit, just for one dance... ha!

But she didn’t want to go alone! Not her seventh year. That just seemed cruel.

Peeking over her arm, she called out hesitantly, “Hey Fig? Are you still in here?”

The room was fairly quiet for a Sunday. Fauna paused. She thought she’d seen him with his head bent over a textbook, working on Runes, earlier.

“Um… what are you, uh, doing about.. the dance?” She shifted from her spot on the couch, saying ‘dance’ as if she’d be facing major surgery or a boot-camp session with Tamis. Fauna bit her lip and sat up, unaware that her head looked lopsided from her bed-hair.

Figaro sat up with a jerk and blinked blearily around the room.  The only reason Hufflepuff Commonroom had been so quiet was because Fig had fallen asleep on the Elder Futhark.  He batted away a strand of drool gossamer and finally focused on his friend Fauna who's head poked over the back of the couch.

Her hair was kind of flat on one side. And puffed up on the other.  Still disoriented from the impromptu nap, he grinned.

"What dance?" he asked, unperturbed.  In the past, Figaro's general attitude about dances was annoyance at having to wear some fancy get-up, but well excited for snacks and jumping around to Three Owl Standard and Gisella Darcy music. But he had begun to notice how some of his classmates got all kerflumpled about dances. Needing dates and nice clothes and all that to have a good time.

He furrowed his eyebrows at Fauna.  "You're not kerflumpled about it, are you?  Well you shouldn't worry about it.  You're nice - there's tons of people who'd go with you.  Don't you have a boyfriend or something anyway?"

Fauna let out a chuckle. What dance, indeed. She should have expected Figaro to be oblivious to something that many of the girls, fifth- year and up, had been obsessing over since September.

“The Halloween one? You know, on the 31st?”

Stretching, and finally standing from her spot on the couch, Fauna raised her eyebrows at the word ‘kerflumpled’. If kerflumpled meant worried or flustered, that did describe her quite accurately.

“Well-”

Then came the boyfriend question and she scowled. “No,” she grumbled. “You’re the only one who seems to think I would get a boyfriend!” Actually, him and Akiva, it seemed. Fauna’s expression softened. It wasn’t his fault she didn’t know how to talk to boys- at least the ones in her own age group, who she thought were cute.

“I guess I am… sorta.. ker-kerflumpled.” Fauna walked over and sat in the chair across from him, giving him a sheepish look. When she ran a hand through her hair she noticed one side stuck up in an unflattering way, so she tugged it down and started a braid.

“I mean, it’s my seventh year. And a lot of my friends are pairing up,” she shrugged. “And…” Fauna trailed off, an idea forming in her mind. Okay, so Figaro still had remnants of drool on his lip from his nap (not that she was one to talk). He chattered constantly and still thought farting jokes were hilarious. But, he was a friend. If she wanted a date that would hang around the refreshment table with her and make her laugh at the dance drama, he’d be the guy!

“Are you going with anyone?” she wondered, studying him as if they were doing a reading in Divination.

Figaro pushed his books out of the way when Fauna came to sit down.  He didn't get Fauna sometimes.  She was always so down on herself, always so concerned with whether people liked her or not.  Fig didn't get that.  He just did what he wanted to do.  Because no matter who you are, the Callum Knights and the Erin Harpers were going to try and flush your head down a toilet, and Sasha Schlagenwiets and the Fauna Blakes were going to be your mates.

When she asked what Figaro was doing himself in the way of company for the dance, he shrugged casually.  "Oh y'know.  With some other boys my age.  Probably try and get some Wheezes into the food and see how many people will turn into canaries.  We'll probably dance around like maniacs again this year."

Like Figaro said, last year he and his friends had taken up a style of dancing (if you could call it that) that revolved around heavy arm movements and liberal amounts of jumping.  They'd been commanded to stop after someone accidentally popped a Gryffindor in the teeth.  At that point they spent time at the refreshment table playing "Puffy Puffskein" - seeing who could stuff the most food in their mouth and still be able to repeat that seflsame phrase.  They were also ordered to stop after one of them gagged and vomited (which was an automatic forfeit, making Figaro the de facto winner.)

Fauna shook her head, but couldn’t resist smiling. She remembered Figaro’s antics from last year, and felt sure that he’d try to top the last stunt at this dance. However, Greyfriar was pretty stoic- he always laughed it off until someone was in danger of keeling over. Snark might not appreciate Fig’s sense of humor as much. In fact, Fauna thought he might want to tone it down, just to be on the safe side.

“As long as you, you know… stay far, far away from Snark. Try to be discreet?” She offered, biting back another chuckle. Asking Figaro to be discreet was like asking Sasha not to say ‘I’m sorry’.

Fauna shifted in her seat. She really did not want to go to this thing alone. It wouldn’t be so bad if she thought she could get a large group of single girls together, or if it wasn’t her seventh year, or if she could just ask the guy she wanted to ask. Devlin already had a date, she bet!

“Um… Figaro?” She piped up, suddenly nervous. “Would you maybe… wanna go with me?”

Her eyes widened when she thought of all the reasons he might not even want a date. “I mean, I wouldn’t care that much about costumes- I mean, I wouldn’t obsess over it like some girls. And you know, you could still put Wheezes into the food,” Fauna said in a rush, then fell silent, glancing at him with unintentional puppy-dog eyes.

At that moment, the leg of Figaor's chair (which he had been rocking in) caught the rug and he lurched with a jerk before righting himself.  He laughed and re-adjusted himself in his seat.

When he finally looked back up at Fauna, he had forgotten what they'd been talking about.  "Huh? Y'what? Oh.  Oh! Yea, yea, no worries, Fauna. You can come with us.  Mad for it! You're seventh year so you can get us some stuff from Zonko's, right? Yea - right on, Blake! Finally up to party!"

"Whoo!" He thrust his palm up, over both their heads for a high five. He was grinning and already plans for a better time were forming in his head.  So far, other than the whole fire incident, he'd been able to keep clear of Headmistress Snark.  But if anyone could transport Wheezes in their purse it would be Fauna Blake, who mostly kept - well, who knows what was in her purse.  Books or... blank thank you notes... or something.  But definitely she'd not be suspected. 

It still hadn't quite occured to Figaro that a girl wanted to go with him as his date.  He'd paired off with a girl his third year, but it had been such a ritualized affair and they didn't talk to each other at all anyway, that he'd put it from his mind.

Fauna had a moment of panic when Figaro started laughing. As his chair lurched, her stomach did the same, and she looked stricken right up until he said ‘no worries’.

Then he finally gave her an answer, or so she thought. Figaro’s babble was incomprehensible sometimes, but even more so when he spouted off words she didn’t expect to hear. Words like ‘us’, ‘Zonko’s’ and ‘Blake’. What was wrong with the name ‘Fauna’?

He didn’t seem to understand what she was trying to ask, and she wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. Did she really want Figaro to be her date to the dance? No, she just wanted someone to go with. Fauna stared at his hand poised in midair. He looked so darn happy, though that was probably because she was a seventh year who could buy things from a joke shop. And he was being nice enough, in his own way, to tell her that she could tagalong with him and his group of friends. It would be like every other year, when she lingered by the refreshment table, watched couples dance, and laughed with the other students who didn’t have dates.

Yet this year… this year was supposed to be different.

“I… uh… all right,” Fauna murmured, clapping his hand in a halfhearted high five.

She lapsed into silence, still processing what had happened. Figaro, Figaro. He just didn’t get it. She supposed that was part of the reason why she liked being friends with him.

“Oh, wait… what do you expect me to get from Zonko’s?” she asked warily. “You know Hogsmeade weekend happens, uh, after the dance, right?”

Fauna was not about to suggest that she could simply order something by owl. Oh, no- he could figure that one out on his own!

A limp high five. A stuttered agreement.  Figaro cocked his head, and didn't hear a word Fauna said after her shaky, mumbled 'all right'.  With a pensive look and furrowed brow he sat back in his chair right and regarded the older girl with some seriousness.

Was this a girl trick? There had been many times in the past wherein his witch classmates had behaved in ways Figaro felt he could never have predicted.  He had learned, over the years, that in general, there was something he missed about communicating with certain types of teenage witches.  And now he had this nagging sense that Fauna was one of those witches. At least today.

She had not returned his enthusiasm.  She was acting like... he'd said no. He didn't get that.

"What?" he finally asked, his confusion plainly written on his sleeve.

"I thought you wanted to go with us? What's wrong? I said you could come.  If you don't want to mess about, well, I guess we could stick to dancing and... snacks?"

What was he supposed to say here? He felt like he'd suddenly gone from talking with his friend to taking an verbal exam.

“It’s n-nothing,” Fauna said quickly. Her disappointment must be written all over her face.

She sighed and started fidgeting with the hair she’d just braided. “Um, it’s not the jokes. That’s fine,” she glanced at him and then glanced away, starting to mirror his confused expression as she tried to figure out how to tell him.

“It’s… if you don’t want to be my date- I, I get it. I’m not offended or anything. I mean, sometimes going in a group is… fun.”

She swallowed. It was more difficult to ignore how upset she was when she actually had to explain it.

Fig Sellaphix was stunned.  He sat back in his chair with a thousand-yard gaze and a slack jaw.  His eyes focused first on the table, his own hands, and then Fauna.  He swallowed hard too.

He was a dense little git, he was.

The rest of the previous conversation made more sense now, and he could now feel the breeze of everything going in one ear and out the other, while his mindless chattering obscured any hope that he'd really listened to what Fauna was asking. 

He blinked a few times, and then sighed.  A tiny smile was creeping back to where it belonged, just at the corners of his lips. Can't keep Fig down for long, no matter how much of a gaffe he'd made.  But now that he realized she wasn't just asking him about what he'd planned to do - that she wanted to with him and just him - he was still stunned and starting to feel shaky happy.  A seventh year witch was asking him to the best dance of the year.

"Alright then," he said, now fully smiling.  "I'll do it. I'll go with ya to Hallowe'en.  I'll take ya proper, without the others.  Do you want a kiss, then?"

He started to push his chair back just then, up for anything now that the discussion had taken such an interesting turn.

Uh-oh. Oh Merlin, she was such an idiot. Why couldn’t she ever be clear and blunt about things? Now, Figaro was grinning as if he thought she liked him. Liked him, liked him!

Shit!

Her eyebrows went up, up, up, disappearing into her bangs. She let out a nervous giggle.

“Uh, Fig? You know we’re… um… friends, right?”

Whether that was clear or blunt enough, she didn’t know. Fauna really didn’t want to hurt him, and she felt a nagging sense of guilt that she'd asked him to the dance because they were friends, because she felt comfortable around him, and because she didn’t want to go alone. Perhaps he deserved to go with someone who had a crush on him, or something, but it was too late now.

Fauna bit her lip and stood, fidgeting with her hands. She stepped towards him, leaned forward, and planted a chaste kiss on his cheek. “Thank you. For agreeing to go with me,” she said, grinning at him. “It’ll be fun, you know?”

A weight had lifted off her shoulders. She had a date to the dance!

If Fig was disappointed at all at being told Fauna was just asking to go as mates, that she didn't fancy him, he didn't show it.   But for some reason, Fauna still looked like she did when she got chastised for something in class.  She was fidgeting, and saying 'um' a lot.  Fig didn't quite understand it, but getting asked to the dance was good enough for him.  He'd figure out what was up with his date later.

He was further confused when his new-date-but-still-just-a-friend planted a kiss on his cheek.  It was dry and soft.  Not like that horrible tongue session he'd had with Stacey McKenna last spring.  He knew he was supposed to like it and that's what dating was primarily for, but that kind of kissing was something you had to wash up after.  Fauna's kiss was more like the ones he got from his mum at Platform 9 ³/₄.

But now she was smiling just as big as he was.  He nodded.  "Yea," he said a little loudly agreeing with her.  "It'll be mad."

He looked at her for a minute more and then with a jolt, he got out of his seat, still grinning, and rapidly gathered his books up.

"I've got to go.  See you at dinner."

He just had to tell someone as soon as possible.  He'd find Sasha, or Devlin - yea, Devlin.  He knew about girls.