UNDER THE MOON, Remus Lupin

lxviii.

FRENCH BOY
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As much as Alice opposed making an appearance at her grandmother's charity ball alone, she still adored the idea of dressing up like a princess. She wouldn't be completely alone, she still had Aria by her side. Aria and Alice hadn't been talking that often, too preoccupied by their own dispiriting love lives. If they could even call them that.

Alice attempted not to reminisce on her relationship with Remus so much, but that made it hurt more. She didn't know what to do with herself. Getting over Remus was making everything worse. Yet the longer Alice pined over her relationship with him, she stayed in the same awful position: sleeping all day, not eating, not smiling, and holding her piss until it hurt so bad she was convinced she needed to go to the hospital.

It was becoming a daily ritual, day after day after day without change. Whenever Sirius and Harry wanted to drag her out of bed, they needed Zeph and Clint to come over and do it for them. They were the only ones capable of getting her motivated to some degree.

By now the days had grown to weeks. It had been weeks since Alice Lafitte smiled even once. She had not even shed a flake of a sarcastic smile to one of Clint's dumb jokes, whether it was out of pity or out of genuine amusement. To be fair, Clint tried too hard to be funny most of the time.

"I liked the pink one," Aria said, standing in a yellow dress behind Alice in the mirror, suiting a purple dress that she just couldn't quite pull off.

Alice winced and rapidly shook her head. "I didn't. It was too poofy, I looked like a pink marshmallow."

"Well..."

Both girls were standing in one of their grandmother's spare rooms, which had dresses in the wardrobes. Big, elegant dresses that you would really only ever wear to a ball. Alice and Aria's cousins were lingering downstairs and setting up food. Their grandmother was of course ordering them around as she did every year. But they didn't mind, she was actually a wonderful person. And in her old age, she couldn't exactly set up heavy tables without risking breaking her fragile back.

"I liked the blue one," Alice said, bending her arms behind her back and pulling the bow that held the top together loose.

"Dark blue..." Aria trailed off, helping Alice take off the dress carefully, so as not to damage it. It must've been a century old at least.

Alice slipped into the dress, which was the color of the night sky illuminated by the moon and stars. It was an off-shoulder dress with a V-neck so low that it stopped just before her belly bottom. Alice couldn't imagine her grandmother in this dress, and she didn't want to. It wasn't an overly puffy dress either. It was slim, but as fluffy as a ballgown. The fabric was a blue-dyed organza, with a thin layer of black lace that sparkled on the lower half, cascading all the way to the floor.

This was a dress to remember. A dress to smile in, especially if it was your first time smiling in a long time.

Shifting in her heels, Alice raised the back of her feet and stood on her toes. "Ouch."

"You should just wear flats like I do. It's not like anyone will see your shoes anyway," Aria said with a shrug, tapping her feet on the floor. They smacked quietly against the surface.

Alice sighed. "I could. But I like feeling uncomfortable in slim heels from time to time. The risk of breaking an ankle is so exhilarating."

"If that's what you call a risk, then you haven't lived."

Perhaps Aria was right, but Alice had already died inside. Besides, apparently Alice's understanding of a risk was dating her werewolf professor.

The two waited until the ball had already started to head down. They just had to be fashionably late. The Lafitte's were always late to everything. Even their periods, which when recently engaging in intercourse sent them into an hour-long panic. Each and every time. Late or not, they looked gorgeous, nonetheless. Alice may have been dying inside due to missing her bed, but it would only be a few hours anyway.