Megan Jones was tired.

She was fighting with her best friend - that's right, Hufflepuffs get in fights too - and it was utterly exhausting.

Justin and her had gotten into an argument the other day - she couldn't even remember what about - and then, suddenly, they had not been speaking.

She wrapped her bright yellow scarf tighter around her neck to fight out the winter cold, and stepped out onto the Hogwarts grounds. What she wouldn't do for a charmed blanket at the moment... but, she really couldn't stay another minute in that horrible, stuffy little school any longer. - Well, perhaps it wasn't that bad...

She missed Justin terribly, but if he wasn't speaking with her, what was she supposed to do?

She scowled.

The Three Broomsticks was open, of course, and frost covered the windows, so that she could only see the soft candlelight inside.

Not today, she thought, and passed it by.

There was a little trail, that passed by the woods that guarded the Shrieking Shack, and she took it, passing evergreen after evergreen coated - rather romantically - with ice. Each tree rose, pin-straiht, into the air, towering high, high above her...

She didn't know where she was going, not really, so she wandered for a bit and found herself at the Three Broomsticks again.

Where had her head gone? All she had wanted was a nice long walk in the woods, but the universe had taken her here. She sighed, vaugualy remembering passing by Zonko's ( - so it did make sense, then, perhaps it wasn't the universe? - ) and, universe or not, stepped inside.

She wondered, idily, why she had not come inside before; it was quiet at the moment, and warm. She took a seat at a rather large table - perhaps some of her friends would stop by? - and ordered a hot butterbeer.

Nursing the drink, she wallowed in her self-pity.

Well maybe if I just tried a bit harder...

There's nothing more to try!

She frowned and tried to distract herself, but thinking of the water in her boots wasn't making her feel any better.

So instead she fantasized about being as popular with the boys as Madame Rosmeta was - oh, the horrors of being a fifth-year and as straight as a board. And too tall, too - oh, yes, she was a real ringer. Maybe if she wore a flower in her hair like Rosmeta, then...

She blew the steam off her butterbeer, enjoying the smell, and glanced around at the others in the pub. There was a shady fellow, over in the corner - but, she couldn't judge, really, she was the one with the cap pulled down half-way across her eyes... and a tired-looking woman with a little boy on her lap. How utterly, completly, absolutley, all-encompassingly, boring.

Justin would have helped her made fun of that one woman's ugly shoes. He would have leaned across the table, grinning, and whispered something quite funny (and probably wildly innappropriote,) in her ear... making her... shiver...

She scowled again, for the third time - she was getting quite good at it, really. But definitly not good enough to take on Snape.

Snape somehow got super-imposed onto what she was imagining with Justin, and -

Eeeeeeeeew!

She almost spit out her butterbeer.

"Hello..." came a dreamy voice from behind her. She turned and came to see Luna Lovegood, wand tucked behind her ear. Today, of all days, she had ditched her signiture radish earrings and gone with life-size sunflowers.

"Hello," said Megan gloomily. "Sit down, will you?"

Luna sat in the offered chair, smiling gratefully. "Is there somethin wrong? You haven't got a nargle infestation, have you? Would you like me to check?"

Megan had been warned about Luna's... ah... eccentricness.

"No, thanks. I'm actually in a fight at the mo."

"Really?" Luna said, as if the notion were scandalous. "Well, what of it?"

"I want to end it and just make up already, but he's not talking to me! I can't do anything!"

"What was the fight about?"

Luna;s tone did not match her words, rather, the sounded like she had said, "What were you talking about?", like a child accusing her parents of playing Santa.

Megan ignored the oddity. "I honestly can't remember."

Luna nodded. "Well, perhaps he feels the same way, and doesn't want to admit he's forgotten because he's afraid you do."

"But how do I know?" Megan insisted on asking. "How can I be sure."

Luna sighed contentedly, but a bit sadly, too, as if she had been woken in the middle of a particularly nice dream, but in a peaceful bit of it. "I suppose you just have to take the plunge."

"What?"

Luna smiled and got up to leave. "It's a Muggle saying, I believe..."