Do You Think Girls Are Pretty?

Grace positively hated snow storms that were too bad to let her play in. This was that kind of storm. She sighed as she sewed the Master Bird Watcher patch to her sash. She hummed to herself blushing a little as she thought about her best friend in the whole world Tamara Perle. She'd seen some girls in her year have crushes on boys, and this was an awful lot like they'd acted, but Tamara was a girl...and Grace was a girl. So she couldn't possibly think about Tamara like that. She shook her head and blinked a few times. She nibbled on the corner of her lip gently. She needed to talk to someone old enough to know about this kind of thing, and then it hit her. She should ask Fiona. She scrambled up the stairs and knocked on Fiona's door. "Fi? Can I talk to you?"

Fiona stretched across her bed on her tummy trying to get interested in her book. So far it was looking like it would be another fail and it'd started out so good too. She yawned as she threw it across the bedroom. Stupid snow was really getting to her now and she could hardly wait until school got back. Classes may be dull but there were at least plenty of other activities to distract her. She turned over on her back and let her hair hang back so that the tips touched the floor and the blood rushed to her face. There had to be something else to do around here.

The knock on her bedroom door followed by her youngest sister's voice brought a small flurry of activity from the fourteen year old. She sat up quickly and winced at the sudden dizziness which came upon her. Her feet were on the floor soon enough and she tripped over a large dictionary she'd attempted to read the night before. Finally she made it to the bedroom door and flung it open before reaching out to grab Grace's arm and drag her in. "Yes. Come in. Come in. Mind the clothes and that dictionary. Sit here." She patted the end of her unmade bed. "So what seems to be troubling you today?" she asked in her best 'sister knows best' voice as she sat at the head of the bed.

Grace waited patiently for Fiona to open the door. However, she wasn't expecting to be heaved into the room like that. She couldn't help but smirk at the sight of Fiona's messy little room. If she'd joined Wilderness Scouts as Grace had suggested about a hundred times she could have learned the beauties of organization by color code. She plopped down on Fiona's bed, laying back and looking at the ceiling. She had about two thousand eight hundred and thirty seven questions to ask Fiona, but she had no idea how to ask them. "Fiona...." She started. "Do you think girls are pretty in the same way that normally girls think boys are? Like, fun to look at and all?" Grace bit her lip hard. That sounded weird to her own voice, but it was the most roundabout way to ask Fiona about what she was thinking without the possibility of misunderstanding the situation. It was just vague enough that she hoped Fiona wouldn't ask her the question.

"Huh?" Fiona blinked at Grace in surprise and the younger girl's question left her speechless. How on earth had that happened when Fiona herself still hadn't quite gotten the hang of this business regarding attraction to anyone. Her head was always a bundle of a confused mess regarding the subject and why the other girls seemed to giggle about certain boys.

When she finally regained the power of speech the first thing she asked was, "aren't you twelve? I thought twelve year olds were still interested in dolls or something." Well she hadn't been but still... "or maybe I should have used knots in your case. Never mind that. My answer is no but hey I'm not you am I? So who's this girl you like so much?" She sat up straighter and tried to be the older wiser sister which was hard when she had no idea what it was like to have a crush on anyone.

Grace played with her hands in nervousness. "I know it's silly. I know it really is silly." She bit her lip gently and stroked her arm. "I dunno it's just when I'm with Tamara I get so nervous and my stomach is all swirly and she is pretty and I like when she smiles. I get so embarrassed sometimes in school because it's weird talking to girls." She shook her head. "Does that make me weird, Fi?" She rested her head against Fiona's shoulder. "I just want you and Mabel to like me the same way, and I don't want my friendship with Tamara to go badly because she means a lot to me."

Hearing Grace describe how she felt about her friend sounded awfully like the way some of the girls she knew talked of certain boys. Fiona believed herself above all that silly stuff and hoped she never ended up acting like that around Rene. Okay. He was a boy but Fiona somehow had the feeling that if she were to act like Grace it would be with a boy rather than a girl. She blinked as she realised Grace had asked a question when demanded a response. "Yep," she replied with a grin as she failed completely to act like the older wiser sister she'd been so determined to be a few minutes earlier. "Totally weird." Then she felt a twinge of remorse as Grace rested her head against her shoulder. Fiona reached out one arm and hugged Grace. "Come on silly. Mabel and I could never like you the same way. We're too different. As for your friend well what's the bet she feels the same way about you." Oh boy did she hope she was right about this because if she messed up Grace's friendship she was going to have to hand in her 'older, wiser sister' badge over to Mabel. "You're my favourite little sister..." Completely true. "...and I say you talk to Tamara about how you feel."

"I don't know." She blushed slightly. "She is way too cool for me. I wish I was you. You don't think about anyone like that. Which is a good thing I might add! You'd probably end up pranking them." She giggled. "Though between you and I, I think Mabel likes a boy. I don't know who it is, but it is definitely one of those two boys that follow her around at school. Which her liking a boy is even scarier than the possibility of you liking a boy. She would probably just sacrifice him to some moon god she worships in a hidden tool shed at school." Grace shuddered. "The poor boy won't last till seventh year."

Fiona shrugged. "I think that makes dad happy. He's a little bit funny about my friendship with Rene 'cause he's a boy and stuff. A teenage boy." All those questions he'd asked just before returning back to Beauxbatons at the beginning of the school year had been awkward. "Well if I did like someone that way I'd think that pranking them was a good way to get their attention," she replied with some dignity before dissolving into giggles.

"You think so?" she asked in shock. Mabel liking a boy sounded so foreign to Fiona's concept of what her sister was like. Sure there were two boys she considered friends and Fiona blamed her for stealing away her pranking partner. "Fane and Stark," she remarked absently and nodded. "It'd be one of them. Probably Fane. That other one I can't see her really liking. I think she just keeps him around so she wont' be lonely when Fane graduates."

"I don't know what I would do if Daddy was like that to me. Rene is your friend. That's just weird." She shuddered. "Dad can be like that though." She drummed her fingers on her lap out of nervous habit. "You always think through your pranks." She pretended to tsk and then wagged her finger disapprovingly at her.

"Yes, I really do think Mabel likes one of those poor boys. Didn't you used to hang out with one of them? Do you still hang out with him? Is it weird being friends with the same person as Mabel? Did she implant tracking devices in their brains? Can she control them like robots who are worshiping their almighty overlord on the field of shadows? Can you control them too? Can you control Rene? Can you make him dance the salsa? He is Spanish right? Do all Spanish people know the salsa? Is that like a knowledge of the Spaniards?" She rattled off all the questions extremely fast. Her eyes went wider with each question.

Fiona shrugged. "Dad's always criticising me so I'm sure that's just another criticism to lay at my door. My choice of friends." She'd given up long ago in making him proud of her. What was the point? "So what? Pranks are what I know. They're what I'm good at and that's not gonna change any time soon." She hit her head against the wall. "I was going to try to be an announcer but Fane got the gig." She gave a big sigh at that. "See. That means I'm good at nothing else."

She shrugged. "Not really. I mean only for a thing or two. I've decided to leave him to Mabel's tender mercies. She'll eventually tear him to shreds like she does everyone else. Of course she can control them. Not through those means though." Fiona wriggled her fingers. "She's got magic no-one else knows. I have no such abilities and I don't think I've seen him dance the salsa. I have seen him cook and that's better than watching Mabel dance. At least I get something out of it. Mabel's dancing is boring."

"That's just silly. I thought Rene was a good person? Or is he not?" Grace tilted her head. Well, she supposed Fiona was once friends with Fane and Fane was friends with Mabel so maybe just maybe Fiona did need to rethink her choice of friends. "I am sorry you didn't get to be the announcer. You could have even announced with Rene if you had made the cut to become an announcer. I wouldn't say you aren't good at anything else. I'm sure you have got a skill, you just haven't found it yet."
"She really does tear everyone in her path to shreds." Grace shuddered. "I could definitely see her having her own secret magic that no one else knows about, in fact I definitely expect that as a possibility." She laughed softly. "Is he a good cook?"

"Of course he's a good person," Fiona snapped. "It's just dad who can't see that." Stupid parents who were always looking for faults and never praising Fiona for doing something right. Something like not failing any of her subjects for starters. She shrugged at Grace's obvious attempts to make her feel better. Fiona didn't want to feel better. She wanted to feel justified in feeling down in the dumps. "Well I don't think I'll ever find it 'cause I'm not good at that either," she replied.

Fiona sat up. "Is he a good cook?" She repeated the question again one octave higher. "Is he a good cook? He's a brilliant cook. You should taste his tortillas. They are perfectly divine." Fiona then sat back again with her eyes closed and a smile on her face. "So good. So very very good." She then opened then again. "But that does not mean I like him as anything more than a friend. You got that?"

Grace's eyebrows had raised their way into her forehead. "Are you sure about not liking him more than a friend?" Grace asked more than a little amused by Fiona snapping the instant she had questioned Rene and by her reaction to talking about Rene's ability to cook. "I mean you're just kind of acting a bit more like a teenage girl than usual." Grace's lips quivered into a smirk. "You should taste his tortillas. They are positively divine." She laid back and giggled out loud at her mockery of Fiona. "You're just acing a little weird." She giggled again. "Should I go warn dad about your weirdness?"

"Of course I don't like him more than a friend," she responded defensively. "Why does everyone keep asking me that?" Her eyes widened at the suggestion that she was acting like the other girls who giggled over boys. "Why? I...What? Of course that's not the way I'm acting. I'm just pointing out that he's very good at cooking good food." Fiona sat back and crossed her arms as a grumpy look passed over her face. "I'm not acting weird just because I like my best friend's food." Thank Merlin she never mentioned holding his hand when she visited him in Paris. Fiona could imagine how Grace would react to that. "Anyway I thought we were supposed to be talking about your friend Tamara."

Grace's smirk was a bit bolder at her sister's reaction to the mere suggestion she had a thing for Rene. "Then don't be so defensive about tall, Spanish, and handsome." She teased her sister. "No, of course you aren't acting like that at all." She said sarcastically. "And now you're attempting to change the subject. Pretty sketchy behavior for someone who doesn't like their best friend, and the trips to Paris you make. Pretty sketchy." She grinned broadly. "Yes, yes Tamara." She smiled brightly. "She's very pretty and I like her very much. See, I can admit this. You however can't seem to do that." She teased again. "I just think you need a good reason to admit it to yourself."

"Not talking to you now," Fiona growled as she continued her crossed armed position. The problem was her head was taking her to places she didn't want to go with Grace's talk of 'tall, Spanish and handsome.' That was no help at all with her continuing with her instance they were only friends. "That's what friends do," she responded and thus breaking her silence before it'd barely started. They visit each other." She shook her head. "Completely different. Completely. You like Tamara in a more than friends type of way. I like Rene in a friend type of way." If that didn't stop Grace then Fiona was going to have to resort to hitting her over the head with a pillow.