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Mason had spent the summer in his usual way. His days were spent working; he got a summer job at a bookstore near his house in the sort of employment that dreams were made of. He reshelved books, recommended titles to customers, and did inventory for the small shop's owner, and he even got paid for it. It was like getting paid for eating candy. He still couldn't believe he'd landed the job. And every evening when he got home he worked through a little more of the coming year's bookwork. The weekends were spent either with family or exploring the countryside. It was idyllic.

Of course, he still missed Hogwarts. The school was beautiful, rich in history that was waiting to be soaked up by ready minds. He was excited about most of the classes he was enrolled in for the coming term - most, of course, save the wandwork classes - and it would feel great to be walking the old halls and hanging out in the common room again.

In fact, the only thing that he wasn't looking forward to was meeting Jacqueline again. They had parted on painful terms, with what amounted to a total rejection, denying even an attempt to become friends again. She had even hugged him goodbye after she'd turned him down, the kiss of death right before he left for summer vacation. He had tried to put her out of his mind over the summer, but every time he let his mind wander, he kept thinking about the way she'd smiled at him... quickly followed by her look of horror and disgust after he had kissed her. He did his best to distract himself, but it soured his otherwise perfect summer.

He dreaded returning to Hogwarts, since it was inevitable that they would eventually run into each other again. He didn't think he could stand much more of her refusal to meet his eyes or her hurrying past him to avoid trying to come up with something to say. Every time she had done it, it made him wither a little more inside. He was a relatively emotionally sturdy boy, but there was only so much of that he could take.

At least, though, he'd come back to Hogwarts with a small consolation - the shining silver badge on his chest engraved with a 'P.' He had been shocked to open the letter and find it, as he hadn't ever expected to be awarded the prefect duty when he couldn't even complete a satisfactory immobilizing charm. He didn't know what he'd do if he came across any student really intent upon committing some kind of crime. But nonetheless, he was immeasurably pleased. He was glad to help the first years through the sorting ceremony upon arrival back at Hogwarts, and he was even excited about doing rounds.

Rounds seemed so responsible to him. He rather liked the idea. It was with a faint smile on his face that he left the common room that evening to do his first rounds of the castle. He headed through the halls, his old shoes silent on the worn flagstones, keeping an eye out for any students out past curfew. As he rounded the corner, he saw a figure moving and took a few steps closer - only to have a very clear view of her as she lifted up her sweater to pull it over her head, revealing a tiny tank top that showed more than it covered. She was shapely. Very shapely, as the moonlight drifting through the leaded glass windows illuminated. And those shapes hovered above a waist that curved gently inwardly beneath the tight blue shirt before arcing back outwards where her hips met the swish of her skirt - her skirt. He knew that skirt. Oh God, he knew that skirt, that old-fashioned high-waisted skirt, and those practical-yet-feminine shoes. His eyes snapped up to her head, or what little of her head was visible above the sweater she was pulling off. Sure enough, the crest of blonde hair that was just above her shirt was Jacqueline's.

He took an involuntary, half-stumbled step backwards, all of the blood in his body rushing up into his face. "Oh, God," he croaked weakly. Him and his luck, it was always his horrible luck. He'd spent all summer pining over her, and the first day of school, he ran into her taking off her shirt in the middle of the hallway in the moonlight. It was like pouring salt on a wound, then wrapping it in nettles, just for extra kicks. He had to get out of here.

The moment that his faint exclamation fell out of his lips, Mason immediately knew that everything was about to come crashing down. It was a beautiful scene, Jacqueline pulling off her sweater, even as she struggled with it rather ungracefully. In fact, that was almost more attractive than some sort of model disrobing. When she got her elbows lodged in the sleeves of her cardigan, it was awkward, yet completely entrancing. He loved that she could be so amazing, yet completely human and liable to silly mistakes like this. Of course, the fact that her undershirt was riding up to expose her flat stomach didn't hurt, either.

But crash down it did, and with surprising speed and drama. Jacqueline went completely still, then something seemed to click in her head. She let out a high shriek that made Mason wince and raise his hands halfway to his head in pained surprise. At the same time, she yanked her sweater off and held it up to her chest, over the tight little tank top, in a desperate attempt at the modesty she usually displayed. But in the rapid motion, she threw herself off balance and landed on the flagstones, staring up at him in disheveled horror. When she fell, he took a few steps and held out a hand to try and catch her, but he was far, far too late. He was left staring at her anguished expression.

"What are you doing here?!" she screeched in surprise.

"I -" Mason began, but he quickly began losing his eloquence in the face of Jacqueline's upset state, "I was - rounds! Sorry! Rounds, I was on rounds, you know - the -" he pointed to the prefect's badge on his robes to illustrate his point, since words were failing him," the -... rounds of the castle! I'm one of the prefects, so it's - it's kind of my duty, I mean, I'm sorry! This wasn't-" He rubbed the back of his head. Oh, this was all wrong, completely wrong! He sounded like a total idiot, and he certainly wasn't making any headway. He would be lucky if she thought him a bumbling fool after this, as he could easily be pegged as some sort of voyeur. God, he was terrible at this!

"Look, this is a mistake, I just stumbled across you, I didn't mean to -" No, it would not be a good idea to tell her that he didn't mean to look at her. There was really no good way for her to receive that, was there? She could take that to mean that she wasn't attractive, which was far from the truth, and at the least, she would know that he had looked. Instead, he started anew. "I didn't mean to scare you. I'm sorry." Should he say that again, that he was sorry? No, he'd said that three times already. This was useless! No matter what he did, she was bound to hate him even more now. That was the last thing he wanted. He was still head over heels for her, and now he'd gone and bungled it up again. The fact that it was an accident didn't really matter, did it?

He watched her with a wretched expression for a long minute of silence, then sighed and glanced away. "Nothing I say is going to really help, is it?" Nothing had changed since last year. He was still enamored with her, and she was still... completely unattainable.

For a few long, painful minutes, Jacqueline stared at him silently in horror, the same look that she'd given him when she'd run away in the bathroom, the one that made something shrivel up in his guts. 'Oh,' he thought faintly. This was turning out even better than he'd hoped.

"You...you're a..." she trailed off, her finger limply pointing at his gleaming badge. "Oh god." With that, she raised her hand to her brow as if she thought he was some kind of fever-induced hallucination that would disappear if she just took a few pills from the mediwitches. He blinked. The badge upset her? Really? Out of the entire situation of him walking in on her taking her sweater off, it was the prefect's badge that made her faint? Something there wasn't quite right.

After a minute, she made a careful effort to get to her feet with the aid of a nearby column. He would have given her a hand up, but he suspected that she would flinch away, and that would be even worse. She held her sweater close as she stood in embarrassment, and his cheeks tinged pink again. He didn't want to make her uncomfortable. He wanted to make her happy. He wanted to be happy with her. Of course, only one of those three was happening, and it was just his luck that it was the first.

It was only then that he noticed the faint glint of silver from between the folds of her sweater. He hadn't seen it before, because it was caught in the fabric of her sweater when she was taking it off. He stared for a minute, then his eyes widened in comprehension. "You're not - ... you're the other prefect?"

Of course she was. Sometimes Mason really hated his life. It just seemed like his entire existence had taken a turn for the worse that day in the library, and everything had just piled on from there. Not only had he just walked in on the girl he was enamored with taking off her shirt, and not only did he have to face her for another three years of classes, but no. There was more! He had to be partnered with her as the Ravenclaw prefect, fulfilling duties, doing rounds, and generally being in her presence all the time. It was enough to make him seriously consider the idea that there was some force behind the universe, but that it was a malevolent one, tossing around the dice of Fate and giggling when the numbers made someone miserable. Someone like Mason.

"I...um...yes.." she mumbled, tugging him out of his self-pitying thoughts. Perfect. When he asked about fixing things with words, which was really more of a statement than a question - he really already knew the answer - she looked trapped. She got that pained look on her face that said that she would like nothing more than to run away down the stony hallways and avoid saying something in response, but instead, she just moved one hand to her hair in an attempt to put it back into place while she responded, "It's...it's a-alright."

For a moment Mason paused. Then he slid his hands into his cloak pockets, looked down to his shoes, and sighed. He was silent for a long moment, absorbing that. By the time he looked up, he had a tired, defeated smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"You know... I almost believed you there for a minute."

Mason couldn't help but think that his history with Jacqueline was just a neverending storybook full of Issues, with a capital 'i.' He began his friendship with her by blowing up at her out on the grounds when he thought that she was one of those prejudiced witches. He'd shouted horrible things and disappeared, only to later discover that she was nothing like he had thought. He was lucky that she'd forgiven him then. And then last term he'd gone and kissed her when she wasn't at all interested. She'd run away, and he hadn't seen her for more than fifteen minutes at a time since. She obviously still hadn't gotten over that. And now here he was, running into her stripping off her sweater in the hallway. Issues. He supposed that he was good at them, in the same way that some children were good at breaking expensive chinaware. It was a talent he could have done without.

After all, it was what had gotten him here, shifting his weight on the flagstones every few minutes because he couldn't quite stand still under her gaze as she stood there in mute horror, clutching the shirt to her chest and, if her face was anything to judge by, wishing he would melt into the floor. If only he could. Knowing himself and his magic, he'd get stuck knee-deep in stone and she'd have to fetch Madame Cambridge from the infirmary, and then she'd be laughing at him and everything would be even worse.

But as it stood, he was kept in place by two distinct forces. The simpler one was that his feet felt frozen to the floor by this whole situation. However, the more important one was that he wanted so desperately to make Jacqueline see that he would do anything to make things right between them. If she asked him to, he would march right up to Headmaster Witchard himself and put a lit dungbomb into his hands, as sure a suicide as that would be. He couldn't help but hope, however much in vain, that if he just apologized enough or stuck around long enough that she would realize how sorry he was and take pity on him. It was a sad realization to discover that he would have been happy with pity.

And then she began shouting at him in French. He didn't know nearly enough words in it to begin to understand what she was saying, but it sounded awful. But as she did so, she raised her hands to her cheeks in an expression of her anger at him.

The sweater fell to the floor, leaving only the thin, clingy undershirt that revealed more than it concealed.

There was no God.

Between the double-assault of her French tirade and her impossible to ignore body, Mason couldn't help but stare for a moment in complete and utter shock. Then reality kicked in and informed him that watching her would only make her more upset, so he shut his eyes, as much as it pained his fifteen-year-old male self. That narrowed it down to only the French, which was still obviously no good, but it was better than both the French and her tiny camisole. Only after she ran herself out of French and gasped did he hear the quiet swish of her retrieving her sweater from the floor, and then he opened his eyes again.

For a moment, he had no idea what to say. He'd heard her upset once, in the dungeon classroom soon after they'd fought on the grounds, but this was completely different. He opened his mouth to reply, then shut it again when he had no words to say. Only after another minute did he finally manage to respond.

"I'm ... I'm sorry." He swallowed. He didn't know what she'd said to him, but the emotion was clear - 'get away from me.' He clasped and unclasped his hands anxiously. Before tonight, even if she was upset at him, he'd had a chance. She'd left him with a hug last term; she had obviously at least wanted to allow some charade of normalcy. But now... now was different, clearly. She wanted nothing to do with him, and while he couldn't blame her, it didn't take away the sudden stabbing pain in his gut. Well... if that was what she wanted. He would still do anything for her, even if it killed him.

"... I'll... let you be." He looked away. "You can pretend this never happened. I won't breathe a word of it. You don't even have to see me on rounds. See, I'll take the dungeons and the first floor, and you can do the second and third floors. You.... you won't have to see me again."

With that, he turned and walked quickly away down the hallway.