Tap, tap, tap.

Tap, tap, tap.

What was that blasted noise?

It was no use ignoring anymore. Lily groaned, fighting to overcome her drowsiness. With a struggle, she eased herself into a sitting position, squinting as tiny points of light exploded in her vision. White lights. She closed her eyes again, massaging her temples. Forget the tapping. What was that awful pounding in her head? And why wasn't it going away?

Lily let her hands go limp, and slowly opened her eyes – just enough for a quick peek. The light stung at first, but her surroundings soon became clear. The dormitory was deserted, silent except for the crackling of flames in the fireplace, and the tapping, which Lily now realized was courtesy of Alice's owl, Chester. Sighing, she stumbled out of bed and opened the window, shivering at the gust of wind that accompanied Chester into the dormitory. She shot the bird a withering glare as it passed, angry that he had disturbed her sleep. He seemed to return the sentiment. She was sorry when she noticed the hungry look in the bird's yellow eyes. He was obviously expecting breakfast. Lily wondered briefly why Alice would leave without feeding her pet when the sound of footsteps sent her scampering beneath the covers.

She snapped her eyes shut, her breathing ragged. She relaxed her muscles, arranging her features accordingly: red hair mussed, mouth sagging slightly on one side. Perfect. She hoped her imitation would convince her visitors. She had no desire to see or speak to anyone.

The sound of footsteps grew closer.

Lily was so preoccupied with feigning sleep that she barely noticed when the doorknob turned and in stepped two of her favorite roommates, weary from the previous night's events.

Their footsteps were hesitant now, their voices muffled. Lily could feel the weight of their presence. "Shh!" Suddenly, Alice was beside her. No one said a word.

Then: "Lily? You awake?" Alice whispered, shaking her slightly. She didn't answer, of course, wishing more than anything that Alice would just go away and leave her alone.

Thankfully, Alice stopped shaking her after a moment, and Lily relaxed. "Oh Merlin, Lily. What's wrong with her?" She paused and began to pace the length of the room. "She should've been awake hours ago. Dorcas, if anything happens to her, I swear I'll - ."

"You'll what, huh?" No response. Lily could almost see Dorcas' triumphant grin. "I thought so. Just leave her alone; she needs her rest."

Alice sighed, doubtful. "I don't know. She took a pretty nasty fall last night. It isn't normal for her to lie so still."

OH…BLOODY…HELL. Why hadn't Lily considered that before? She had been told that she was a restless sleeper, that the slightest movement was enough to wake her up, that she had a tendency to mumble and thrash from side to side. Of course Alice would have observed her sleeping patterns, after years of friendship and living together. Oh well. It was too late now. Lily braced herself for another examination.

Luckily, Dorcas' dry humor saved her. "Yes it is. It's called sleeping."

Silence, then: "You're not funny."

Dorcas snorted, as was customary of her. "At least I'm sane."

"First of all, no, you are not. And second of all, if there was ever a moment when insanity would be acceptable, I think this would be it! How can you act so calm?" Alice screamed, hysterical.

Why was she so concerned about Lily anyhow? Couldn't a person sleep in on a Saturday without all hell breaking loose?

"I'm not acting. This is how normal people behave. You, m'dear, are just hysterical."

"I am not! She…do…do you realize how long she's been lying there?"

How long had Lily been lying there? She couldn't remember, she realized with a start. Not at all.

"Relax, Mum. Don't you think you're overreacting just a tad? I mean…clearly, she isn't dead," Dorcas said loftily.

So Lily wasn't dead. That was comforting. In a way.

But was she…dying? Was that why she couldn't remember anything? Had she blocked out all memory of the experience, in the hope of sparing herself the pain?

It couldn't be. How…? She would know if she were dying, wouldn't she?

Yes, of course.

Death was cruel, yes, but – unlike life – at least it was fair.

"I should hope so, for your sake. Because if she's not, it'll be your burden to carry. Yours and yours alone." Lily felt Alice sit next to her on the bed. It took all of Lily's self-control not to cringe. She was never a fan of close proximity.

"Whatever," Dorcas snapped, but her voice sounded softer, more reassuring the next time she spoke. "She'll be fine. I'm fine, and I had as much – if not more – to drink than she did."

Drinking? Huh? Lily was certain now that she was missing a crucial piece of information.

To Lily's relief, Alice got up. "You're fine?"

"Yes." Her voice was eerily calm.

"You sure about that, Dor?" Clearly, Alice wasn't buying it.

"Yes, that's what I just said. Do try to keep up, Al," Dorcas said, mocking Alice's friendly use of the nickname.

There was a long pause, which Chester saw as an opportunity to continue his campaign for food. He hooted and ruffled his feathers, struggling to get his owner's attention. Apparently, Lily was the only one who heard him.

Finally, Alice sighed, her anger giving way to her conscience. "Listen. You know, even though I'm not too thrilled with you right now, if you want to talk – ."

"I don't, thanks," Dorcas interrupted quickly. "I'm fine, remember?"

"No, you're not," Alice said firmly.

"Yes, I am," Dorcas replied, with a finality that any normal person would've taken as a signal to just forget it, let it go, accept that whatever was going on with Dorcas, she didn't want to talk about it, and that was the end of it.

But Alice was not any normal person.

"Dorcas, if you think that you can sit here, all sarcasm and fake smiles, and pretend that absolutely nothing of significance happened to you last night – or to any of us, for that matter - then you are sadly mistaken." Alice said all this without pausing for breaths in between sentences, just needing to get everything out before it all numbed inside her head, and she forgot why it was so vital to begin with. She stopped, then, calmer, but still with the same resolve to continue, whether Dorcas heard her or not, as if this were the last time, the last moment, they could ever have this conversation, and they were going to have it, no arguments. "You…Dorcas, you cried…I've never seen you cry before. Never. In all these years. Not once. Not the time you almost got expelled, not when your mum sent you that letter (you know the one I mean, don't look so confused). I never thought I would. I can't even imagine what…what could've happened…what could've affected you that way. I don't want to have to imagine it. I want you to tell me. Please?"

Lily, sensing (and sympathizing with) Dorcas' resistance to talk to Alice, decided to make her presence known. It was no use to try to sleep. Not while her roommates were there, in the middle of – or, worse yet, just at the beginning of - a heart-to-heart. She forced her eyes open, blinking. A pair of pale, worn faces swam into focus: one smug, the other exuberant. Lily cleared her throat, glaring, trying to act as if she had only just discovered her friends hovering over her. She would have wondered why they were watching her so closely while she slept. It was a bit odd, in any case.

"Oh, shut up, will you? I like a good row as much as the next person, but come on. I'm trying to sleep here."

"It's three o'clock in the afternoon."

"Lily? Is it…are you…awake?" Alice asked hesitantly.

Dorcas rolled her eyes at the question, stepping back to give Lily air.

Lily resisted the urge to follow her example. She nodded instead, not trusting herself to open her mouth again. She felt queasy, suddenly. Her head ached, her mouth dry and sticky. Her world was beginning to spin, the lights blurring where they danced, those white lights that refused to leave her. Had Lily been able to move, she might have fled the room. She didn't know how much longer she could keep it all together. Lily put a hand to her forehead, surprised to find it wet. She closed her eyes, leaning her head against the pillow, finding relief in the horizontal.

Dorcas watched from a distance, frowning from her position atop the dresser.

"Lily?" Alice prompted again. "Are you okay?

No, I'm not, she wanted to say. But she couldn't say anything. She couldn't even speak.

Something was wrong.

Lily felt sick, and she wanted to know – no, she had to know – why.

Exactly what had happened last night? What could make Alice so worried, and Dorcas so glum? Why would the girls feel the need to lie awake all night, watching Lily's progress? Lily racked her brain for an explanation, but found none to her satisfaction. She had no memory of the previous night. It had vanished – dissolved, somehow. Lily probed deeper, but it only made her head ache more painfully, and her memories remained out of reach. Nothing. She was drawing a blank.

She needed time to clear her head, perhaps wheedle information out of her friends.

She looked at Alice, overcome with worry, then at Dorcas, her eyes downcast, long legs swinging to and fro. Her cheeks were no longer pale, but pink, puffy. She looked drained. Both girls did. For some reason, it made Lily want to cry.

"Hmm. Looks to me like I was right," Dorcas told Alice, in an attempt at gloating, though her voice lacked the quality necessary for it. Her eyes stayed fixed on the floor. Every part of her seemed determined to betray no emotion.

"I hope so," Alice said easily, turning toward her.

Dorcas shrugged, hopping down and moving toward the door. "Guess I'll go." Her hand was already on the doorknob. "See you later, Lils. Feel better, okay?"

She said this without smiling, without looking at Lily once, without even breathing.

"Wait. Where are you going?"

Dorcas spoke simply. "Out."

She was gone before Alice could protest. She was gone and she wasn't coming back. They knew as soon as they heard the slam of the portrait hole, followed by the Fat Lady's indignant cries of, "Easy!"

"What's her problem?"

Alice's expression softened at the sound of Lily's voice. "I don't know, but forget about her for now. I'll try to explain later. Here…drink this, you'll feel better."

She withdrew a small glass vial from her pocket and handed it to Lily, nodding her encouragement. Lily took it, examining the potion within. An icky purple mess, speckled with bits of green. Okay, so it was of the hospital wing variety. Lily frowned, refusing to drink until Alice revealed its purpose. Alice sighed, insisting that Lily drink now, and ask questions later.

Lily was reminded oddly of her mother promising her and Petunia an extra helping of dessert if they behaved while she ran errands.

But she was too tired to argue. Giving in, she took a deep breath and tipped the vial forward, gulping the fluid down without tasting it. It wasn't too bad, actually. As far as Madam Pomfrey's potions went, it could have been much worse.

Ah, but it wasn't over yet. No sooner had Lily downed the potion than she felt her stomach rise all the way to her mouth. She pulled the covers off and hopped out of bed, making it to the bathroom just in time to see the waters of the real Red Sea gushing out of her, staining the spotless white of the porcelain until it shone like a giant bowl of fruit punch; Lily had always hated fruit punch, and this association with the beverage only seemed to heighten her nausea. She had never seen so much red in her life, and that was saying something, considering the decor in Gryffindor Tower. She thought she was throwing up blood at first, which frightened her, but she had no time to scream, no time to worry that maybe she was dying, after all, and not only that, but that she was going to die here, slumped against the toilet seat in her dormitory at Hogwarts…Oh, Merlin: what would her parents think?

These thoughts and others flitted through Lily's mind as she emptied herself of every ounce of the wooziness she'd felt since she'd woken up, her legs shaking with the sustained effort of supporting her weight, the wooziness itself not yet subsided.

Lily didn't know quite how long she stayed in the bathroom that morning – everything seemed suspended in time, from Alice's presence just outside the door, to the dripping of the faucet just above Lily's head - but when she was finished, she felt better. Relieved. She closed the lid and reached up to flush the toilet, letting her head relax against the tile behind her, as cool as it was bright.

A tap at the door startled her out of her reverie. Chester? Oh, come on...Alice had to have fed him by now!

"Lily?" came Alice's voice, soothing despite its underlying concern. "You okay in there?"

Was she okay? Lily opened her eyes slowly, expecting her vision to be filled with crimson, but it wasn't. And there was something very reassuring about that.

She nodded against the door, forgetting that Alice couldn't see her.

"Can I come in?" Alice asked tentatively, Lily's nod as clear to her as if she really had seen it.

Lily nodded again; opening her mouth seemed too perilous an act to contemplate just yet, so she settled for crawling away from the door instead, hoping that Alice would take her stirring as an invitation to enter (that is, if she took notice of such a slight movement at all). She didn't know why, but now that she was no longer dizzy, she wanted Alice there with her. No, not even for the purpose of information. She didn't want any information, not yet; she just wanted her best friend.

Well, actually, she wanted her mummy, as childish an idea as that seemed to her, even in her confused, not-yet-sober state, but her best friend was the next best thing.

Alice entered the room carefully, hesitantly, every step as deliberate as if a troll were asleep in the next room. Spotting Lily next to the tub, she knelt beside her without speaking, her face ethereal in the morning sunshine. Which appeared to be filtering in through a window Lily had never seen before, lucky for her: the light was blinding to her in her fragile state. She turned, reverting to watching Alice. She looked awful, Lily couldn't help but noticing (guiltily): ghostly, her face long beyond human paleness; straight hair flat and tangled, with something like the stress that comes from having too much concern for another person; eyes bright and clear with a touch of moisture, a blink away from tears. Lily wondered if that's how she looked to Alice, and if Alice felt how she looked, as was most likely the case with Lily.

Lily waited for Alice to speak, but she didn't. She just sat there staring at the nothingness before her, as if waiting for Lily to be okay, or at least for her to look okay. Lily tried to clear her throat, but was thwarted by the sticky muck leftover from the fruit punch episode. She longed to rinse her mouth or better yet, brush her teeth, but she still felt too weak, and she wanted to wait to see what Alice would say to her, if anything.

When Alice remained perfectly silent, Lily tapped her on the shoulder. "Alice," she croaked, waiting till she had the girl's attention to proceed. "You said you would explain everything, yes?"

"I said I would try," Alice reminded her, nodding in spite of this small detail.

"Then…erm…go ahead, why don't you?" Lily prompted, confused as to what exactly she wanted to know.

Alice brushed her bangs from her forehead, looking past Lily to the windowsill, where tiny sugar crystals had begun to accumulate. Snow, Lily noted with a tinge of satisfaction. She smiled, wincing where the muscles around her mouth still ached, but Alice appeared not to notice.

"What do you remember?" Alice asked finally. "The very last thing before waking up this morning. I know it's hard, but you have to try, Lily. Madam Pomfrey said that was the only way to - ."

"You went to see Madam Pomfrey?"

"Well…yes," Alice said, apologetic for some reason not yet clear to Lily. "I had to, Lily. I'm sorry. I didn't tell her you were the one who needed help, though, don't worry; We - I mean I - just said that I needed the potion for a 'friend.' "

Lily ignored Alice's accidental use of the word "we," guessing that the other person involved was Dorcas, and that Alice simply didn't feel like talking about her at the moment.

"Is she going to tell Dumbledore?" Lily wanted to know now, understanding the reason for Alice's apology. She thought of losing her title as Head Girl, along with the respect that she had worked so hard to earn from her peers and her teachers alike, fat tears filling her eyes before she could command them back. Oh...and her parents...why, they'd be more disappointed than if she had keeled over while vomiting fruit punch into a Hogwarts toilet seat!

"I dunno. She said she wouldn't. I don't think so; she seemed pretty serious when she promised, though I didn't hold her to an Unbreakable Vow or anything."

"That would've been helpful though," Lily said, at once impossibly comical and impossibly serious.

"Yeah. But forget about that for now. You never answered my question, Lily: what's the last thing that you remember before waking up this morning?"

Lily bit her lip, trying to remember without thinking too hard, as she feared it might cause her dizziness to return. She closed her eyes and took a breath, searching for that quiet place where her deepest thoughts resided, feeling a bit as if she were letting the sunlight into an ancient tomb, dusty and devoid of light for as many years as it had existed. Thinking had never been so difficult, so strenuous before. She was always thinking, overanalyzing, whether she was aware of it or not. She thought too much, if anything; sometimes it was even annoying. Now, though, it was all she could do to unravel the thread of thought in her head, her mind's eye peeled for something of use, something that might clue her in on the happenings of the past few days. …Wallowing. It was the first word – the first hint of a thought - that entered her mind (or at least, the first that she was able to decipher), and she latched onto it as if it were an essential part of her memories.

"Wallowing?" Lily said, and as she did so, the memory revealed itself to her so completely that she wondered how she had ever lost it. "I was…wallowing, yes? I was upset because I saw James with Analiese, so the next day I skived off, so I could wallow in self-pity (the way the old Lily never would have, she added silently, beginning to remember feelings as well). That was yesterday. I waited all day for classes to be over, and when you and Dorcas finally got back, it was all I could do to keep from pouncing on you. But you were too gloomy to notice. You'd just found out that this month's Hogsmeade visit was cancelled. I didn't care, really, as much as this knowledge seemed to upset you. My mind was on other things. But I was so bored, so terribly bored and sick of being alone that when Dorcas suggested that we sneak into Hogsmeade, I said yes. She made it sound so easy, just to leave everything behind like that, and it'd been so long since anything seemed easy for me... So we went, though you were reluctant to tag along, and she took us to a pub after we'd finished shopping (I forget the name of it), where - ."

Lily paused, not quite finished, yet somehow unwilling to continue. It was here that things got not only hazy, but…embarrassing. It was this part of their little excursion that made Lily the most ashamed, this part that had gotten Lily into trouble, and this part that made Lily feel as if everything that had happened the night before – even if much of it was still a mystery to her – was unequivocally her fault. This was where she wished the story ended. This was what she didn't want to remember, and why she could still remember wanting to forget.

"I drank," she admitted finally, wilting under Alice's warm, expectant gaze. "A lot. And it wasn't good. That's all that I remember, I reckon." Or maybe just all that she was willing to remember.

All the pain – no, the shame - that she could take for one day.

Alice, as if she understood this, began to fill in the blanks. She touched her bangs again before she spoke, a sure sign that Lily wouldn't like what she was about to say, and that she wouldn't like saying it. "That's good, Lily," she said first, trying on a smile but discarding it mere seconds later, as if seeing how worthless it really was. "You remember a lot. I can fill in the rest, but - I should warn you that you may not like some of it..."

"Or most of it," Lily said, reading Alice like an open palm with the head, heart, and life lines exposed.

From the way Alice looked, half-nodding, half-frowning at Lily's perceptiveness, which should have made things easier for her, Lily knew without a doubt that whatever happened next was going to tear mercilessly at her heart line.

"Okay, well, there's no easy way to put this. You drank a lot, you're right, and so did Dorcas. The two of you gulped down glass after glass of this sticky red liquid. I didn't catch the name of it. It made you actridiculous. (In other words, the way that Dorcas acts on a regular, day-to-day basis.) You got drunk quickly and it kept getting worse, because no matter how far gone you were, it was like you wouldn't stop; you just kept wanting more. I was…worried about you, you know? And then...ha, guess who came gallivanting – yes, that's the only way to put it, so shut up - through the door in the middle of everything?"

Lily realized that Alice really did want her to guess.

Only, she wasn't so sure she wanted to know anymore.

She guessed anyway, saying the name of the first person who came to mind, a person who it seemed she hadn't thought about in a long while (though she knew, obviously, that this was the polar opposite of the truth): "James Potter."

"Yep," confirmed Alice gravely. "And Sirius Black. What a pair, eh? They came in, and you started to get all excited, like you'd forgotten who they were, exactly, but you knew that they were cute. You called James over and we…erm…chatted, I s'pose, while Sirius and Dorcas ordered another round of drinks. And then you asked James to dance and the two of you left. I'm not sure what happened between the two of you, if anything. I had my head down on the table at this point. But the next thing I knew, everyone was screaming. Or, well, just one person…at first."

Lily's eyes widened; she was still inwardly cringing at the thought of James witnessing her foolishness. The screaming, however, added a twist to the tale that even she had not foreseen. "Who was screaming?" she asked, hoping that it wasn't her.

"It wasn't you," Alice assured her, reading her mind, as usual. "It was Dorcas."

"Dorcas? Why? What happened?" You...Dorcas, you cried...I've never seen you cry before. Alice's words struck Lily in a way that they hadn't earlier. She had assumed that Alice was just overreacting, as usual, possibly using the word "cry" figuratively. After all, Alice was right: in all their years at Hogwarts, not once had they seen Dorcas cry. She was everything brave, strong, and reckless. Nothing bothered her, nothing scared her, nothing made her wince in disgust...Nope, sometimes not even the important things. Lily was puzzled as to what could have elicited so strong a reaction from her friend.

"I'm not sure," Alice said, shaking her head almost sadly. "I tried to get it out of her, but she wouldn't tell me. She didn't speak at all the whole way back to the castle. All I know is that I heard Dorcas screaming, so I ran to see what the ruckus was, and the first thing I saw was Dorcas and a woman who looked old enough to be her gran involved in some sort of duel! Which…shocked me, as I'm sure you can imagine…so for a moment I froze: I just stood there awkwardly, trying to figure out if I should intervene or call for help or just keep watching and hope that everything resolved itself, when, to my relief, Sirius came to Dorcas' rescue. Or…uh…he tried. Her opponent was pretty spry for someone so old. I still can't figure out how she escaped unscathed with so many wands pointed at her. Anyway, Sirius helps, and then you and James come bounding over, confused at first but eager to join in, only…you end up getting hit with a curse, and while everyone is rushing toward you to see if you're okay, the old hag just kind of…disappears. I don't think anyone cared at that point, except maybe Dorcas; she's the only one who knows why the whole thing started, after all. Oh, and the proprietor of The Flaming Phoenix: we are now officially banned from ever entering the pub again. For life. You, me, Dorcas, James, Sirius – all of us. I think James and Sirius were pretty sore about it; apparently, Al's a family friend. Dorcas might've been sore, too, if she'd been paying attention; apparently, he's a personal friend – if you know what I mean. But…it was scary, Lily, even if I can joke about it now. Not so much that you fell, but the way you fell. You went rigid and you didn't move, didn't even flinch, when your body made contact with the floor. It almost looked like you were…well…you know. And for a split second I thought you might be. I didn't see the color of the curse you were hit with, remember? So I wasn't sure if…if…eh, if you could get back up on your own."

Lily nodded, knowing that there had been a lot more that Alice hadn't been sure of, like whether Lily would get back up at all. But she understood why Alice hadn't wanted to say this, even if it did hurt just as much unspoken. It was better if kept in limbo – that space between thought and speech, abstract and concrete, where only memory could tread.

"How did you get me back to the castle, then, if I couldn't move on my own?" Lily asked at last, knowing the answer the instant she asked the question.

James.

Alice swallowed. She was probably wondering whether Lily really needed to hear this part. Whether it wouldn't just upset her more. "Yeah, he carried you back to the castle. We were there, too, of course. James and Sirius took us through a secret passageway, which was better than how Dorcas had planned to get us back to Gryffindor Tower, which was just to tell us to make a run for it and pray that Filch was too preoccupied with Peeves to notice. Her only advice? Run fast." Alice rolled her eyes almost fondly. "Well, that's Dorcas for you, I s'pose. She doesn't care about her own future; what makes you think she'd care about ours?"

Admittedly, Lily was getting tired of Alice's animosity toward Dorcas, which she suspected was largely an excuse to mention her. She directed the conversation away from Dorcas and toward her favorite subject. Well…she had promised she'd stop denying it, hadn't she? "So, James carried me back to the castle, with you, Sirius, and Dorcas in tow." She couldn't help the smile that swept across her features at the thought, involuntarily, nor could Alice help mimicking it with one of her own. "And then...you went to Madam Pomfrey, who...?"

"Well, we went. James and me. Sirius stayed with you and Dorcas. She still wasn't very aware of her surroundings at that point, but I think she was happy to have some company. So, James and I went to see Madam Pomfrey. I was nervous going alone, never having needed a cure for a hangover myself, but James didn't seem to mind asking for one. Said he was used to it, and that Pomfrey would practically be expecting him to show up. Erm...yeah...let's just say he wasn't too far-off. Well, okay, I don't know if she was expecting him, and she certainly wasn't expecting me, but the idea that there were students not only out of bed after hours but out of bed and intoxicated really didn't seem all that unsettling to her. I s'pose she's been there, done that even more times than James has. She told us to use a levitating charm to carry you up the stairs (as you know, the girls dormitories are off-limits to boys - yes, even the marauders, surprisingly; I know, I figured they'd found a way around that by now) and gave me a potion for later. She said it would 'remove the impurities from your body,' though she forgot to mention how - sorry about that, by the way. There was going to be some memory loss, as often happens when a person is stunned while intoxicated (or just intoxicated), but nothing permanent, she assured us, and certainly nothing that a good deal of rest and relaxation couldn't fix...You know how crazy she is about making people stay in bed all day. She even wanted us to bring you to the hospital wing for an official examination, but James convinced her that wasn't necessary. She loves him...but, er, anyway...that's basically it. After we managed to get you upstairs, I pocketed the potion, we said our thank-yous, and Dorcas and I retired to our dormitory for a sleepless night of watching you sleep, neither of us saying a word to each other the entire time."

"Until this morning," Lily finished for her.

"Until this morning," Alice agreed.

They sat in silence for a time, Alice retrospective, Lily drowsy.

"Hey, want to go back to the dormitory?" Alice asked kindly.

Lily looked up. How had Alice stood without attracting her notice? She must still be tired, she decided.

A day's worth of sleep wasn't enough to shake off a hangover?

"Mind if I brush my teeth first?"

"Oh. Uh, no. Go right ahead."

"Hey, Al?" Lily called when she was safely in bed once more.

"Hm?"

"If I ever, ever try to drink again..." She paused, thinking. Her head was growing fuzzy with the anticipation of sleep. She kept her request simple, forgoing an attempt at her trademark wit. "Don't let me."

"Will do."

"Oh, and you should feed Chester," she added as an afterthought, already drifting off...

"What?! Oh, Merlin...Chester! I'm sorry!"

A/N: If you're impatient like me, and you just can't wait find out what Dorcas' deal is, you can read all about it from her POV in "I Always Knew," a one-shot I posted last summer. It's okay; I liked it a lot when I wrote it. I find it a bit cheesy now, but it does go into more detail about Dorcas' feelings than this fic ever will, which is always a good thing.

So long, my lovely readers (and hopefully REVIEWERS)!

Love,

AllIWannaDo