Oh No, Not You! ((Billy))

[Sita Mehadi H7]

Sita had always liked dressing up, since an early age... but dressing up for a date was a completely different matter. Sita would have liked a boyfriend, really. Other people had them, after all, and why on earth shouldn't she have one? So the Valentine's Day Blind Date Party seemed like an excellent idea to her - she could spend the day being excited about maybe finding someone, rather than being sad about the lack of Valentines messages (to be fair, there had been one, but it had been from some third year Hufflepuff and that was just a little bit weird). As usual, Sita was determined that Billy wasn't going to be allowed to be complacent, and she'd persuaded him to join in. "You might end up being paired with someone you like!" she'd told him, and although he hadn't seemed so sure, he had acquiesced in the end, though maybe less because he was convinced than just to make Sita happy (or at least satisified so that she might shut up for a moment). Billy hadn't stood any chance of escaping Sita's excitement over the day, though - earlier on that day, she'd dragged him into Hogsmeade to buy a single rose to bring for whoever he ended up being paired with. She hoped that he'd quit being embarrassed this evening and actually bring it, but she hadn't seen him down here so far - she'd entered the Great Hall with a couple of girls from her dormitory, after they'd finished dressing.

Sita did look pretty - it wasn't just her vanity, and it wasn't only the pink lip gloss. She was wearing a pale pink, shiny satin dress, quite low cut, and a necklace of wooden beads that Ingrid's sister Janine had given her a number of years ago and Sita was pretty fond of, as much for memory's sake as anything. Janine had often tagged along with Ingrid and Sita, and even after the two older girls stopped spending much time together, Janine had still come and found Sita to talk to during the summer holidays. Sita liked the younger girl - she was very much like the younger version of Ingrid that Sita still missed quite a lot. She fingered them now, it giving her a bit of comfort in what was actually quite a nervous situation for her. A bit of hair fell in front of her eyes and she brushed it away; she'd straightened her usually wavy hair for the occasion and it looked smooth and shiny. She hoped her date would be someone nice, because she had done her best to make a good impression.

Whoever it was, they were a little bit late. It was bad manners, but still, she would forgive them if they turned out to be someone nice. Then again, if they were nice, wouldn't they try to be on time? Maybe they wanted to be fashionably late. Sita decided that she didn't mind too much anyhow and went to get herself some pumpkin juice, which was being served out in champagne glasses. It was at this point that she was ambushed, but by her friend rather than her date, because she turned around to see Billy standing there, holding the red rose rather sheepishly. He looked smart and relatively grown up in his black suit, and Sita smiled at him encouragingly. "Oh, hey Billy!" she said. "It looks good - your suit I mean; it's nice. I bet your date will be happy to be paired with you! Go find them, you don't want to be late," she advised him bossily. She stared at him as he didn't move. He looked half way between laughter and horror, or wanting to get as far away from the noise and situation as he could, a mixture which she didn't quite understand. "What?" she asked, starting to laugh herself at the expression on his face.

[Billy Brady H6]

The day had finally arrived. The day Billy had been partially dreading for the past few weeks, since Sita had convinced him to take part. Yes, the Valentine’s Ball was here, and once again Billy was single. But that wasn’t his main worry…that was the fact that tbis year there was a twist. In the form of…a blind date party, which is what Sita had persuaded him to commit to. The pairings wouldn’t be announced until that evening, at the beginning of the party, so he had no idea what to expect. He hoped he would be paired with Harmony…or did he? After what Rex had done, he wasn’t so sure whether he liked her anymore or not. He wasn’t even sure if she’d signed up or not.

He still couldn’t get over what Rex had done. Although it wasn’t technically betrayal as his best friend didn’t know how Billy really felt about Harmony, it still felt that way. May be it just emphasised how alike they were, but things could never return to the way they were. Never. He thought about this as he stood in the bathroom adjacent to his dormitory, as he tried to neaten the mop he called his hair. For once he was making an effort with his appearance, wearing something other than his relatively scruffy uniform, or ripped jeans and old t-shirt as he normally wore. He’d managed to dig out and clean up an old, black suit and blue shirt that he hadn’t worn for a couple of years. It was a bit on the small side, but still fitted well enough to be acceptable.

Thinking that his hair was as neat as it ever would be, he walked back into his dormitory and sat down on his bed. All the other boys had gone down already to see who they’d been paired with, but Billy was too anxious to go and look. He looked over at his bedside table, and saw the rose lying there. A solitary red rose that Sita had made him buy for whichever girl he was paired with that afternoon on their trip to Hogsmeade. She’d been going on about this ball all day, and Billy just didn’t have the heart to tell her to shut up. Not that he would normally, but he wasn’t in such a good mood as it was, what with the couples reminding him about Rex and Harmony,

He wasn’t sure what to do with the rose…should he take it or not? He might end up with some girl he couldn’t stand, and he would NOT want to give a rose to her. He might end up with someone he liked, but maybe giving a rose on the first, well, date, would seem to forward and cheesy? Or did girls really like this, whether the first date or after 50 years of marriage? He decided just to take it and see. If he ended up with some awful girl, then maybe he could try and hide it somewhere. Whatever happened, it couldn’t be too bad, surely?

Wrong. He looked at the notice with the pairs as he entered the Great Hall and buried his face in his hand. Sita. It would HAVE to be her, wouldn’t it? He wondered if she already knew or if she didn’t look, to wait for the surprise. Knowing her, probably the latter. She may have wanted a boyfriend, but she also liked surprises, and he guessed she was more of a traditionalist when it came to relationships, waiting for the boy to make the first move. He looked around the crowded room for her…and it didn’t take him long to see her in the pink dress he’d heard so much about, and he couldn’t help thinking that he had never seen her looking so pretty in all the time he’d known her.

He walked slowly over her, and seemed to give her a surprise as he arrived. She obviously hadn’t seen the list, not only from her actions, but her words too. “Ummm…” he said as there was silence after her mini speech. He held out the rose to her, not sure what to think about the situation, half wanting to laugh, half still in shock. He hoped she would take the hint, as she started laughing. Apparently there was something amusing about the look on his face, and her laughter, as always, was contagious as Billy started to grin himself. It was an awful situation to be in, but he was sure the funny side would come to light soon enough.

[Sita Mehadi H7]

Sita only laughed for a little time, and then continued to stare at Billy in puzzlement – his uncomfortable ‘ummm’ had hardly been very informative or communicative.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded more specifically, and then noticed that he wasn’t just holding the rose: he was actually offering it to her. She looked at the rose itself just as questioningly as she’d been looking at Billy before (there was probably about as good a chance of getting a useful response out of it, after all), before coming to the only conclusion that seemed sensible. They must have been paired together, before she was pretty sure from her interactions with her that Billy didn’t like her in that way and therefore wouldn’t be doing this ‘voluntarily’.
“Oh no!” she exclaimed. “Are you serious?” She glanced at him imploringly, as though hoping that he was joking; however the look on his face before had been too convincing for her to be able to hold on to that hope for long. This was for real. “Oh no!” she repeated, starting to laugh again. “Why did we bother?” she wondered aloud. “Oh well.”

Putting her pumpkin juice down for a moment, she took the rose from his hand with a smile. “Thank you Billy, what a kind thought! Hmm, let’s see…” – she held it against her dress – “… doesn’t go. Here, c’mere.” She leaned across and fixed the rose in his top buttonhole.
“There. Now you look like you’re going to a wedding, but never mind.” She stood back and admired the effect, and then picked up her pumpkin juice again, along with a full glass for Billy, which she handed over to him, noticing that as well as looking decidedly awkward, he also looked just a bit glum. Putting her face closer to his, she peered at him as though this close inspection of his eyes and expression would allow her to work out what was troubling him. Needless to say, it just prompted a change of expression to another one that Sita wasn’t so keen on, and she quickly withdrew in order to pursue another tactic.

“Cheer up!” she exclaimed brightly, beaming at him as an example and hitting Billy on the arm so suddenly that some of the pumpkin juice sloshed wildly out of his glass; fortunately it didn’t land anywhere other than the tablecloth and floor.
“Oops! Didn’t mean to do that, sorry. But really… I’m not that bad, am I? C’mon, let’s go find somewhere to sit,” she suggested, disappearing immediately into the crowd. Winding through the many other couples was quite difficult, as they were all chatting to each other and not paying much attention to whether they were blocking main thoroughfares, but with her slender and small frame she managed to squeeze her way through quite easily. Finding an unoccupied bench at the side of the hall, Sita quickly took advantage of the seating opportunity.

“Over here, Billy!” she shouted over the noise of the room as she saw him emerge from the crowd looking disoriented. She patted the space beside her on the bench as he looked over. “You really don’t look that happy,” she commented as he sat down, displaying the concern of a friend. “What is it? Stacey was really bad-tempered and upset earlier on today, but she wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. She said that you weren’t speaking to Rex, which isn’t usual… what’s going on, Billy? Haven’t you two been friends for years and years? Trust me, you don’t want to let those sorts of friendships go.” She stared thoughtfully into her pumpkin juice, her eyes once again showing the old hurt and sense of loss from being left out by Ingrid, her oldest friend. “They’re really precious things, if you can hold onto them,” she said quietly. She looked up at him gravely. “Is it something serious?” she asked, “…I mean it must be, if you’re not speaking to Rex – I’ve never known you not talk to him before. I wasn’t going to pry actually – anything that Stacey’s involved in I usually try to stay out of – but if you’re unhappy then… you should talk about it,” she told him with a small, reassuring smile, instinctively laying a comforting hand over his.