May the Best Man Win |×| Fred Weasley | 1 |×|

×| FORTY-EIGHT |×

ANYONE WHO SAID NEWT CLASSES WERE EASY STUNK OF LIES. In barely a term of her sixth year Evelyn felt she'd done more work than in the rest of her time at Hogwarts. The professor's had been pushing her hard for the past weeks even though the exams were more than a year away and she was already beginning to feel her enthusiasm fizzle out.

And so when it was announced that, as was traditional during the Triwizard tournament, Hogwarts would be hosting a Yule ball that year on Christmas Day, Evelyn was more than ecstatic. For some the news of a dance had stirred up a feeling of anxiety and dread at the idea of socialising and the uncertainty of wether or not they'd manage to find a date in time, but for Evelyn and a lot of students an enthusiastic buzz had returned to the castle halls. There was now an opportunity to relax and something to look forward to where they could just enjoy the night with the promise of an exciting holiday spent with friends. What was more, Evelyn didn't even have to worry about finding a date. She already had a boyfriend, and not one who would abandon her on the night to mess around with his friends or anything like that.

Max had said it best one morning after the Ravenclaw's had undertaken a slightly awkward ballroom dancing class where professor Flitwick had charmed mops and brooms and walking sticks to stand in for an actual partner for each student rather than demonstrating himself - there was literally no reason for Evelyn to be nervous about the ball...

...Apart from maybe the very small detail of finding herself the perfect dress to make the night feel as impossible as she supposed it had ought to.

Fortunately for her, a hogsmead visit had been promptly scheduled not long before the ball, and so Evelyn along with Max, Nikki, Margaux and Léonie had hurried off to a far corner of the village where a small wizarding boutique sat hiding between a tea shop and a post office.

"So what colour are you planning on getting? Blue maybe? Or green?" Max asked Evelyn, holding a set of silver robes up in front of the mirror. Evelyn leant against the wall, carefully scanning the room of dresses and robes.

"I don't know..." She said.

"Well I think you'd look good in dark green, and then you and Ethan would match. I'm sure he'll wear his house colours." Max suggested. She discarded the silver robes on a nearby rack and held up a long purple dress with lace, then promptly made a disgusted face and moved on to another option, "but it's up to you."

Evelyn didn't answer right away, but instead took in the surroundings a little. She'd always thought it would be simple to pick the outfit for such an important event but here she was struggling to know where to begin. On one hand, Max had a good point that green could be an appropriate option for her, but on the other hand maybe she should wear navy blue and represent her own house at the dance.

"What if you stopped worrying about colour and started with style first?" Nikki said coming out from the changing rooms dressed in glittering green robes. She paraded the room for a moment as the other girls complimented her choice of outfit before pulling a couple of dresses out of the rack closest to Evelyn, "How about a shorter one? Or maybe something form fitting?

"I think the colour doesn't matter if you don't feel comfortable. You could wear your favourite colour but hate the dress anyway for how it makes you feel." Margaux pointed out from where she sat with Léonie on a bench near the mirror Max stood in front of, already having chosen their outfits. Evelyn nodded slowly and joined in with the chatter, heading over to another rack of dresses to browse.

And then, not a quarter into scanning that row of dresses, she found it. Evelyn was so wrapped up in telling Max how she should definitely pick the silvery-blue jumpsuit she'd just tried on that she almost didn't see it. That would have been disastrous, she was sure, for immediately as she'd laid eyes on the dress she'd known it had to be the one.