Nothing Less than Perfection (Jackie, openish)

[Zoe Stratford]

The hour was very late, and the lights in the common room were dim. Everyone had gone to bed hours ago, and there was an eerie silence in the room, broken only by the crackling of the fire and the scratching of quill on parchment. Zoe Stratford sat at a desk in the corner by the window, a small candle floating above her, casting a flickering light over her work. Spread out in front of her were several books, and a scattered stack of parchment paper. Even in Ravenclaw, where high achievers and dedication to studies was the norm, Zoe worked like no other.

Every paper had to be done as soon as it was assigned. Every homework assignment had to be flawless. And anything less than 100% on any test wasn simply unacceptable. At the moment, she was working on a paper for Potions class. She also had a test to study for in Ancient Runes. She couldn't go to sleep until she was sure she would do well on both of these things. Sleep was a novelty to Zoe.

She was getting hungry, so she pulled out a small sack containing an apple and a small cake, which the house elves had given her earlier. Unwrapping the cake, she took a bite, never taking her eyes off of the paper in front of her. She was so involved in her work that she never heard the footsteps on the stairs.

[Jaquelyn Frazier]

Jackie was a decent student. She could have probably been a very good student had she ever really put in the effort. She learned, and she paid attention, but she just felt there was so much more to life than getting good marks in a class. That, and she had such a hard time sitting still, that she often had to go back and relearn a lesson on her own.

But she received decent marks, and she was okay with that.

The Potions paper, however, was frustrating her, and she had been slightly irritable all day until Dean offered to help her with it. She had been in his room all evening, until his room mates finally kicked her out.

With her parchment in one hand, she descended the stairs quickly, hoping to make it back to Gryffindor before anyone docked points for beng out so late.

She spotted Zoe, an ex of Dean's. "Sorry," she said, "Didn't mean to make so much noise." She was still headed towards the exit. She had no real problem with the girl, though she never thought she had been a good match for Dean.

[Zoe Stratford]

Zoe was startled by the noise, and jerked her head up to see a girl walking down the stairs. After a moment, she realized, to her dismay, that she knew the girl... and she was not in Ravenclaw.

Jaquelyn Frazier, a Gryffindor, was coming out of the boy's dormitories. Zoe's mouth fell open and she suddenly regretted eating that piece of cake. She was quite sure she was about to be sick.

"You're not supposed to be in here," she said coldly. "I should report you."

[Jaquelyn Frazier]

"Go ahead, if it will make you feel better," Jackie told her. She knew how most Ravenclaws were about the rules, and she wasn't about to argue that she hadn't broken a rule. She had... Zoe was right; she wasn't supposed to be here.

But she was fairly confident that the parchment, plus the boys as witnesses, would be enough to get her out of trouble. It was school related, after all. Nothing else had happened.

"But you'll probably get your own house in trouble if you do," she added. She meant it as a nice gesture, anyway. "Afterall, someone had to let me in."

[Zoe Stratford]

Zoe frowned deeply. She knew who that person was. It had to be. But thinking of it only made her feel worse. She didn't want to get him in trouble. She just wanted him to love her. "You were with him, weren't you? With Dean." She swallowed. "And what were you doing up there? I suppose you're going to claim it was all perfectly innocent? Even though you were in a boys' dormitory after midnight?"

[Jaquelyn Frazier]

Jackie frowned. "What exactly are you implying, Zoe? All of his room mates are upstairs." She knew exactly what Zoe was implying, and she may have been adventurous, but *that* was beyond her comfort zone.

"If you must know, Dean was helping me with a paper."

[Zoe Stratford]

Zoe pressed her lips together tightly. She really had no desire to imagine what Jackie had been doing in Dean's room. A mean, catty side of her wanted to make some snotty comment about taking turns, but somehow, she couldn't bring herself to say it. It wasn't that she couldn't let herself think that way of Jackie. No, it was the idea of Dean participating in such a thing that held her back. She knew Dean well enough to know that he was an honorable, upstanding guy, who would never behave inappropriately.

This upset her even more, and she let out a choked sob. "Of course he was," she said in a bitter tone. "Of course. Dean wouldn't..." Sniffling, she looked up at the girl. "But you are together now, aren't you?"

[Jaquelyn Frazier]

Jackie was a girl, and of course she had that catty streak as well. Besides, Zoe had broken up with Dean a long time ago. Or the way around, she couldn't remember. But looking at her now, she assumed it was Dean who broke up with her.

"Yes, we're dating, if that's your question."

She frowned deeper at this. Zoe was the first person she told. They were finally dating, and she wanted to tell people... so she made it official by telling her? It wasn't exactly how she saw it playing out.

[Zoe Stratford]

Zoe raised her chin and glared at her. "I always knew you wanted him," she said. "The whole time we were going out... He spent too much time with you... Everyone knows boys and girls can't really be friends. I told him I didn't want him spending so much time with you."

She'd always known they would end up getting together. And what a disgusting surprise to get it confirmed.

[Jaquelyn Frazier]

Jackie crossed her arms over his chest.

"Let me guess... he got really quiet when you told him that?" Dean had a way of being very quiet when something upset him, so she assumed he would have been quiet in the situation too.

"But you know what?" She continued, raising her eyebrows. "That's probably when he first started thinking about breaking up with you."

[Zoe Stratford]

Zoe gritted her teeth angrily. "You know him too well," she said, remembering how Dean had, indeed, gotten very quiet when she ahd told him not to spend so much time with Jackie. But she still didn't think that had been such an unreasonable request. He was her boyfriend; was it so wrong for her to want him to spend time with her and not with another girl? "And how dare you theorize about our relationship? You don't even know me. Or... did he confide in you? Did he talk to you about me?"

[Jaquelyn Frazier]

Oh, wouldn't that just bake her noodle if Dean had confided in her? But no, it was an unspoken understanding between them that they could talk about his girlfriends and her boyfriends, but nothing too extreme. Yes, of course she had heard about Zoe, and Dean had come to her when things started getting too intense for him. But they told each other nearly everything anyway. It would have been like him talking to one of his dorm mates.

"He never told me that you wanted him spending less time with me," she responded coldly, but carefully.

[Zoe Stratford]

Somehow, that actually made her even angrier. That meant he hadn't even considered doing as she'd asked. He hadn't told Jackie he couldn't spend as much time with her. "Oh, he didn't?" she demanded. "So he didn't actually plan to do as I asked? I don't see what the big deal is... so I wanted him to spend more time with me and less time with you... Can you blame me? Would you want him spending a lot of time with me while he's going out with you?"

[Jaquelyn Frazier]

Jackie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "What do you even care? You guys broke up, like, a year ago. Let it go, Zoe. And for the record, no. If he *wanted* to spend time with you because you were his friend, I would never tell him not to. It's not my place to tell him who he can have as a friend."

And, whatever Zoe had thought at the time, they had been just friends when Dean was with Zoe. Jackie had been with a Gryffindor boy at the time, anyway.

[Zoe Stratford]

Zoe scowled. How dare this girl tell her to get over it? She wasn't over Dean yet, and that was the problem. She still loved him. And he probably didn't think about her at all anymore. "You know, it's easy for you to say that now," she said, her voice shaking. "But you can't tell me you wouldn't feel just the slightest bit jealous if he started spending all his time with some other girl... laughing... whispering in class... speaking your own secret language that no one else understands. Say it wasn't me... say it was some other girl. Maybe the Burke girl in Slytherin. The one with the really curly hair? If Dean started hanging around her all the time and ignoring you... well, then you'd understand."

[Jaquelyn Frazier]

"I don't believe for a second that Dean ignored you," Jackie said, jumping to her friend's... no, her boyfriend's defense. "He doted on you. Remember that wonderful Valentine's? He spent *weeks* planning that for you. What if I had been a guy, Zoe? If I had been some boy in his year, and he spent so much time talking to me. You wouldn't be jealous at all. It was the same thing."

She couldn;t believe they were fighting over Dean right now. This was ridiculous. Zoe was an ex, Jackie was his current... though now there was a strange seed of doubt in her that felt like he had to date Dean longer than Zoe had to make their relationship real. This was stupid.

"Leave us alone, Zoe. You had your time. It's over now."

[Zoe Stratford]

It was possible that Jackie had a point. Would she have been so jealous if Dean had spent so much time with a boy? Actually, she probably would have been, but for different reasons. If Jackie had been a boy instead of a girl, she wouldn't have had the same suspicions about what they might have been doing while they were alone. But she still would have been jealous of the amount of time he had chosen to spend with someone other than her. Zoe was used to being doted on constantly... her parents had been so loving and affectionate, and had fawned over how smart she was, and it spoiled her for others. She expected that kind of attention from everyone, and it was a harsh reality to see that in real life, no one actually gave a damn.

Mentioning the Valentine's Day would have actually softened Zoe up a little bit. If Jackie hadn't then turned so harsh and final with her words, Zoe might have chosen to leave him alone.

Instead, she ground her teeth again. Jackie had just declared war in Zoe's eyes.... and Zoe intended to win. "Fine," she snapped furiously. "But you'd better get out of here and back to your own dorm before I summon your head of house and tell her you're wandering the falls after midnight."

[Jaquelyn Frazier]

Jackie gave Zoe an almost amused and certainly cruel look. "Well, if I'm risking getting caught wandering the halls, perhaps I should just stay. I'm sure Dean wouldn't mind, and you wouldn;t risk losing your own house points."

Situations like this were precisely why Jackie didn't have any girlfriends. There was too much drama and stupid problems. Of course, her own girlish, catty streak didn't help matters at all, and she had a very strong desire to see what Zoe would do.

She turned on her heal and started back towards the stairs to the boys' dorms.

[Zoe Stratford]

As Jackie started back up to the boys' dorms, Zoe got to her feet and pulled out her wand. "Don't even think about it," she hissed. "I don't want to be a tattletale, but if you go back up there, I will report you. I don't even care if it gets Dean in trouble... I can tell him you tried to sneak up there or something. But you don't belong here. Just leave!"

[Jaquelyn Frazier]

What reaction had Jackie been looking for? She couldn't tell if this was it or not. The thought of Jackie going back up to Dean obviously made her angry... and that should have made Jackie happy, right?

She wasn't sure what she felt about it.

"I'm going," she said softly, altering her course.