The Stars and Forbidden Cigarettes | Professor Remus Lupin

The Winter Ball

Fireplaces remain lit all throughout the month of December, the flames watching students cramming and sitting for exams, packing for the holidays, and, on the last and most awaited night of the semester, preparing for the Winter Ball.

The common room is overflowing with the girls getting ready to descend the stairs to meet their dates, but Reverie is alone in the girls dormitory, staring at her image in the dusty mirror on the wall. Her silk green gown, reflecting the warm light from the glowing candles beautifully, fits like a glove, and she's sure that her brown hair has never shined so brightly. She runs her hands over the front, right where the waist line separates the tighter chest portion to the loose, long, flowing skirt, touches her mother's pendant necklace, and takes a deep breath.

She sees her trunk on the floor, empty; for the first time in seven years, she isn't going home for the holidays, and her eyes well with tears at the thought, her heart contracting. She didn't honestly think she'd get this far, all alone, and she isn't ready for the painful reality to sink in.

But, she reminds herself, she isn't alone. Oliver is waiting for her, and the thought of braving this last night with him makes descending the stairs into the now empty common room that much easier.

Oliver gets up from the velvet red couch when he hears her, and when he sees her, he's sure that he feels his heartbeat in his stomach and his head at the same time. He drinks in the image of her and her dress, and Reverie reddens under his gaze.

His eyes meet hers, and she ruffles the skirt jokingly.

"Good choice?"

He grins. "Great choice."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Walking into the Great Hall, she feels eyes on her and Oliver, but her eyes are stuck admiring the decorations all around them. The ceiling is bewitched to show the never-ending bright gray that accompanies winter's signature light snowfall. Snowflakes are falling around them, but they dissipate into the air just a few feet above Oliver's head. Decorative white winter trees are all around them, with the signature 12 Christmas trees adorned throughout the room, making the hall look like a winter forest that Reverie wants to get lost in.

In the middle of the room, she sees a large fountain, with its water frozen mid-fall. Reverie's cheeks become rosy, because although the room isn't truly a winter wonderland, there's a slight chill, and she loves it.

But before she can go on analyzing any more of the room, Oliver squeezes her arm.

"Fred is calling me over. I'll be right back," he says, and makes his way towards the center of the room.

Scanning for a table with empty seats, her eyes fall on Professor McGonagall, her back turned towards Reverie, talking animatedly with Professor Lupin. Subconsciously, Reverie knew that he was going to be here. She knew that.

But, looking at him now, as he nods to something McGonagall says and brings his glass up to his lips, nothing could prepare her for the way his eyes somehow go straight to her from across the room, for the intensity with which he looks at her from over his glass, for the way it somehow feels like the snow is falling down directly on her and simultaneously like she's burning as his eyes travel so, so slowly down her figure unabashedly, as if ingraining it to memory. Nothing could prepare her for the way his eyes move back up and meet hers as he ever so subtly raises a single eyebrow, challenging her. Reverie looks away, and Lupin looks back towards McGonagall, now on her second drink and still speaking, and he smiles, and McGonagall takes it as encouragement to continue, even though the only coherent thought Lupin seemingly will ever have is of Reverie Castill.